Extracting Wax

Back in September I extracted the honey I'd harvested earlier by cutting the comb out of the frames then crushing and straining it. This left me with a load of frames with a lot of wax stuck to the edges as well as honey and propolis. Not enough propolis or honey to be particularly useful to me but the wax I can certainly use. Next year I'll be needing new foundation for the supers and some of the manufacturers have exchange schemes whereby you give them your wax and they exchange it for new foundation. Some people make their own foundation from their reclaimed wax, others use it to make candles or beeswax polish -actually that looks fairly simple so I might give it a whirl at some point, I'm sure I can find a use for it. Another use for the wax is treating the wood of the bee hives -you melt the wax and pour it on, it's bee friendly and waterproofs the wood. My housemate tells me some people apply beeswax to dreadlocks which strikes me as a great way to attract bees to your noggin. 8^O But whatever rocks your boat. Once at a party I had a go on a didgeridu. The mouth hole had a circle of beeswax on it that you could reshape to fit your mouth. There you go. Another use for beeswax that few of us can imagine being without.

So I've got these grotty frames asnd I want to reclaim the wax stuck from the edges of and I've also got 3 supers worth of shallow frames complete with comb from an auction that've been sat in bin bags since my buying them at a clearance auction. The wax from these frames I can't let my bees come into contact with because they're from another apiary and there's always the chance they may harbour some bee disease or virus which could get passed on to mine. It's also for that reason you shouldn't ever give honey to wild bees btw, no matter where you bought it.

So how to remove this wax then? Well I could spend a few hours carefully scraping off what I can and melting and straining it. But I won't. I'm a busy chap with things to see and people to do. What I did with the frames that came with the first hive was boil them in hot water then pour the water and molten wax into a bucket, as it cooled the wax which had floated to the top solidified into a disc which I was then able to remove, melt again and strain through cheesecloth. It worked okay and I did a similar thing with the remaining squashed wax from the honey extraction. It was a pain cleaning the wax and other crap from my large pan afterwards though so I don't plan to repeat that exercise. I've recently acquired a steam wax extractor, specifically a Thornes 'Easi-steam' -actually it's half an easy steam as I decided not to buy the steam generator seen as I already have a wall paper steamer and figured I could use that. Bee keepers are a thrifty lot.

The unit is basically a metal floor with a sort of spout bit on one side and a metal grille above that to catch any bits of crud, then there's an 'eke' (think of it as a quare empty wooden frame) to raise the box above a couple of inches from metal floor, and a metal roof skin with a hole in it that has a nozzle for a steam hose to attach to. You place a national wooden floor below the metal floor and a national super or brood box with all your grotty frames between the roof and the eke. The steam melts the wax and it runs out of the spout bit into your receptacle -in this case poundshop aluminium food containers -8 for a quid. Good Plan Batman!

I hauled out my steamer and discovered the hose end didn't really fit the Easi-steam's connector. Bugger. So a minute with some snips and I'd removed the offending thread from the steamer's hose, a few more minutes and a trip to the hardware shop on Chanterlands Avenue and I'd secured it with cloth tape and cable ties. Ace. 8-D

Cloth Tape and Cable Ties hose modification

Next problem was the floor I'd got with my initial hive, ordered via eBay from some idjit in Driffield, turned out to be the wrong size. It's commercial sized on the outside but the batons making up the sides are too wide for the tray doesn't sit in it properly it. If it'd been correctly made to either Commercial or National measurements I'd've been fine but that's the kinda chance you take if you buy things on eBay from people who use lots of capital letters and exclamation marks in their listings. Using a few random bits of wood to plug gaps I was able to bodge it anyway. I could've just made a new floor, it's not really rocket science afterall -seriously it's only three sticks and a square, and I think that'll be the plan next time I use it.

Easi-Steam Floor

I added the super -a Thornes super I'd bought unassembled from another eBay user. I figured different manufacturers probably have a few millimeters difference in size tolerance so go with the same and I should be fine. Although the super was cedar wood I'd painted the outside a rather natty shade of green Shed & Fence paint to match the hives and the rest of the boxes.

Easi-Steam Floor with Super and some sticky shallow frames

I loaded the super with sticky shallow frames that've been cling filmed and boxed up in the dining room since September's honey extraction, turned on the steamer and popped the metal lid on.

I mean tried to pop the metal lid on. Removed the metal lid, turned it 90 degrees and tried again, removed it again and tried refitting it a number of times. Went to the shed dug out the rubber mallet I used when I laid the patio a few years back and with a few carefully aimed and gently applied wallops managed to get the lid on properly. When Thornes said the lid fitted snugly they weren't kidding. Actually after doing the first batch I found the lid easier to remove and replace than before so the problem might've been that it'd contracted due to the cold and having warmed up it'd expanded again. In use the contraption has quite a steampunk feel to it with wood and metal surfaces, a hose and, of course, steam coming out of it. A bit of Raspuina playing in the background wouldn've been just the right audio accompaniment to the bubbling and dripping.

Easi-Steam in use

It worked a treat. within minutes there was some very clean pale yellow wax dribbling out of the spout into my foil food tray, accompanied by some brown looking water but TBH not as much water as I'd exected. I'd started in the early evening and as the temperature dropped the wax started to set on the spout and stopped coming out. Next time I'll do it earlier in the year whilst the weather's warmer, in the meantime I finished extracting the following day whilst the sun was up and it was still warm, I also did the second hand shallow frames too before sterilising them.

Loading up with used frames

The first thing I noticed about using the Easi-steam was the odour. It smelt fantastic. The super I used was made of cedar which normally has a fairly pleasant but faint odour to it anyway but with the heat and steam going through it the aroma was really strong and really pleasant -actually it was a lot like a sauna but without the unpleasant knowledge that all the wooden seats are steeped in other peoples' sweat. Nice :) The second thing I noticed was the wax dribbled out and cooled it looked like a fried egg with the molted wax in the middle and the paler set wax at the outer edges. The third thing I noticed was that the steam partly melted the plastic runners on the super, so next time don't use plastic runners. They cost almost a pound per pair so obviously I'm pretty devestated about that particular faux pas. The other thing I noticed was that not long after firing up the steamer a few bees came to investigate probably drawn by the smell of wax. They didn't stick around long enough to be a nuisance.

Molten Beeswax