Raw Beeswax: Part 1

A few months ago, I got to chatting with a friendly acquaintance and beekeeper at a friend's birthday party.  

He shared stories of his small time beekeeping adventures.  

I shared my love of using raw honey and beeswax in my soaps, lip balms, wood polish, and how I also wanted to try dipping candles and handmade beeswax crayons for the boys.  

He mentioned that they just throw away the combs and foundation sheets after extraction.

I gasped.  

He said he would save them for me.  

I said, ok.

A few weeks ago, a bag of beeswax arrived.

Big smiles, all around!
These are the foundation sheets and brood comb.  Brood comb is where the queen lays her eggs.  It stinks really bad and doesn't yield enough wax to be worth the time and effort.  The house stunk for about two days for less than a tablespoon of wax.


On to the good stuff...  We tore the foundation sheets into 1" pieces and melted them slowly in our fancy double boiler.  


When the wax was completely melted, we poured it through our high tech filtration system to remove most of the debris.  It worked pretty well, but some of the tiny particles found their way through. {Adds character, right?!}

Once it's hard, I'll take it out of the bucket and chop it into smaller 2 oz. bits for easy use.  I think we're going to make homemade vanilla lip balm first, so stop back next week for the recipe!

Happy weekending~








2 comments

  1. Wow.. I never knew you could do that! Can't wait to see what you make... :)x

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  2. Your photos almost smell like honey...i`m really waiting for the lip balm recipe now. Btw, i like your fancy high tech equipment ;)

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