Steam Wax melter

Throughout the season you build up a pile of normally skanky wax comb from damaged frames or from extracting the honey

The local beekeeping association has a scheme where you can trade in your unused wax and they in turn sell it on to an organisation that then gives it a discount on the wax foundation sheets we buy from them.
However before we pass the wax onto them it has to be cleaned. There are many methods of doing this and normally you melt the wax with some sort of bain marie and then strain it through a pair of tights, first making sure no one is wearing them, into a plastic container.

If you can afford it you can buy steam wax melters which do what the name implies

The association recently bought one for use by any of its members and I wondered about making one and in the words of that irritating arse Jeremy Clarkson, thought 'How hard can it be?
I wandered through YouTube and a lot of home made ones used the steamers you use to get wallpaper off. I had one of these so I thought I would give it a go.

Apart from trading it in I use the wax to make candles and furniture polish and add it to propolis to make a cream. More of which in a future blog