Melt down

Last night set about melting all the various bees wax, some almost white (cell caps) and other black (very old brood combs). Staying true to form made loads of mistakes and am now an awful lot wiser.

What you see are the two sides of the resulting cake, the size of a large plate and about 4cm high. About 3cm is yellow wax. The gunge on top of this I should have scouped off with a spoon while it was liquid. On the other side attached to the wax is a layer of propolis and what one sees on the photo is general dirt. Note for the shopping list... bee hive entrance foot mats and signs ... wipe your 6 legs and stinger. This muck is scraped away, the propolis can be used for mixing in things like cream - MrB says it has to disolved in alcohol, not Pimms but the plain stuff from the chemist. Doubt the propolis here is of any value as I certainly overcooked the brew.

One cleaned up I could remelt the wax and put it though a fine filter, one version I saw simply used kitchen towel to filter. Lots of people seem to use DIY boxes covered with a pane of glass to melt the wax in the sun. I did it on the kitchen stove an absolute no, no, and the reason I didn't try splashing around with spoons to scoop out the scum. Will have to build a box for the future.

Need MrB to check it out but suspect of little use for foundations. Perhaps if we have a rainy day when the grandchildren over in a few weeks time, we can make some candles for Christmas. Exactly 6 months to the day until Nikolaus Day. Time to start ironing the tinsel......