Making stuff with bees wax

bee producing wax

To one degree or another bee keepers will find themselves building up amounts of bees wax.

The wax in the frames needs to be replaced from time to time, particularly the brood frames that can get quite black. This is a build of general muck and particularly brood poo.
Its recommended you change  third of the frames each year. Its important as the queen won't lay eggs in dirty comb.

Also the wax in frames can be damaged and need to be replaced.
I have done blogs on collecting wax from extraction and also the use of a steam extractor..

The wax I get from the steam extractor mostly comes from old brood frames and isn't as clean as the cappings wax which is usually bright yellow.

So what to do with it?

I use some of the 'brood' wax for general repairs to frames and to stick things together.

Once the wax has been cleaned it can be traded in against the cost of new sheets of wax and the Bedfordshire Bee Keepers Association run this sort of scheme. The cost of sheets of foundation to members of the Association is about half the normal retail price.

However for most beeks, particularly if they do markets, the wax is used to make candles and furniture polish.

Making polish is easy, if a little pointless as few people have wooden furniture.
Its just a mixture of bees wax, I use the brood wax as its colour isn't important, turpentine. and carnauba wax.
Its important to use pure turpentine not turpentine substitute.
You can buy artists  turpentine by Winsor and Newton for £5.25 75ml but I get it from eBay for £8.50 500 ml
Carnauba wax comes from the leaves of a palm tree only found in North Eastern Brazil.
INTERESTING FACT - Keith of The Little Smokehouse tells me its used to make the shiny shells of Smarties.

There are a variety of different ways of making candles but I don't have the patience for most of them.
I have tried to make moulds by covering a suitable figure/toy with layers of latex but it was a pain and didn't come out well.
Dipping candles also takes too long so I just use silicone candle moulds.
I use the cappings wax as the candles are quite yellow and nicer to look at. Most of the candles are sold to kids and I don't think any of the candles are actually lit.

Here are videos of how I make the polish and candles.