Beeswax

Beeswax is made after nurse bees (one of the jobs inside the hive) secrete wax flakes from their scale like body, and then chew it to make it malleable enough to form into the honey comb. They come out almost clear, and even after chewing the wax, the newly formed comb is bright white. The bees use these cells or honey comb to build brood chambers for babies, and cap wax over honey cells for storage. There are a few reasons to harvest beeswax, but only when the time comes, you never want to take from the bees when they are busy building, foraging and harvesting for winter. Only when you have old beeswax frames, or an abundance of frames not going into a hive will you then harvest the beeswax, and melt it down to clean it and store it.

In our case we had what was left over from scraping and straining our first honey harvest along with some super old frames that we originally started with from a NUC that we bought as our first colony. It was dark, and had been used for years so when we started to introduce new frames, and the girls would build that comb out, we had extra frames that needed harvesting. So I decided to clean it all up cut that comb out, burn the old frames and store the wax. We also had extra random pieces from when they build out of frames in the space left, or if they build in the few days you’re waiting for the queen to be released. After doing some research on the web I realized the easiest way to harvest clean debris free wax, was to boil it down in several stages in water cleaning the water in between sessions. This allows you to strain all the extra bee parts and hive debris, and because you’re using water, when it cools the wax separates itself, allowing you to scrape, and reboil. I did this probably a good 5-7 times before I ended up with a fully cleaned, debris free beeswax patty. We did 2 batches of wax, and then I melted it all down, poured into molds and have kept in a big jar ever since. A little beeswax goes a long way, especially when you’re making salves or ointments as well as lotions and other natural products. If you use one for a wax burner, it will last much longer than store bought artificial scented waxes. Happy waxing my friends!