From Garbage to Gold: Making Pure Beeswax

Rendering beeswax from honey cappings and burr comb + turning it into a candle.

Fall Line Ridge beekeeping.

[nigelwylie]

I am a Bookbinder & Leatherworker. and we use beeswax for conditioning linen & cotton thread before sewing. The wax derived from cappings is regarded as the highest quality. The fact that most of your wax candle came from cappings may partly account for the difference in colour between your candle and the other one at the end. Capping wax is usually brighter and clearer like yours.

[sandramedina]

I love how you're not afraid of the bees. This is eye opening to the process required for bees wax candles. Thank You for sharing.

[tinydancer]

In the future, when you are letting the beeswax/slop mix cool, use (if you have it) a slightly deeper container and fasten a piece of clean window screen across the top, thereby keeping wayward bees from doing a kamikaze dive into the cooling wax.

[Rigr_Mrtis]

A fun fact: the original wax that bees produce from their glands is clear and looks like ice flakes. But as they use it with their mouths it gets mixed with whatever else they're chewing on like pollen, honey or plant sap. So basically the fresher the wax is the less colour and smell it has.

[jamieharkar]

This definitely explains why beeswax candles are so expensive. Thanks for the lesson!

[pyrx]

I love how he picked up the hot pot without gloves while talking about how hot it is, then it cuts to him wearing gloves. 😂

[jamiehughes]

Moment of silence for the bees who thought it was smart to enter the liquid

[pebblesthecat]

My grandie and grannie had a rural farm and grandie kept about 2 dozen hives situated at various spots around the farm. Near each hive he would plant different scented flowers, all around the hedgerows, climbing up the barns and storage sheds, the haystack and milking parlor.
Grannie used to make scented candles to sell in their farm shop, and some of the flowers were permanent, like the clematis, rhododendron, honeysuckle, gardinia and jasmine. While others were planted as experiments or because that's what grannie said she wanted, so grandie did as he was told - things like phlox, mock orange, iris, sweat pea and lilac. She also used to sell embroidered scent sachets for drawers and wardrobes from the petals of the dried flowers, with the sewn flower on the bag matching the scent.
But grannies pride and joy was her rose garden outside her kitchen window, and the wax from the rose hive was only used for their house. She would stand at the sink, watching the bees in the sunshine, flit from one flower to the next, getting duster and more yellow. These bees🐝 made the best beeswax, sweetest smelling candles, and those candles were only ever used in their bedroom. Grannie once said it helped to keep the romance alive and well (with a smile and a wink) - she was 68 at the time and I blushed I was so embarrassed ! She stood there laughing at how red faced I got, telling grandie when he came back for tea, and he bust a gut laughing as well.
They were married for 76 years and got married when grandie was 18, and grannie 16. They were each others first, last, and only love and died within 2 days of each other. They were buried together, next to each other, side by side.
Sorry about the ramble, but watching this video, seeing you making the beeswax brought back so many happy memories, especially Sundays - church and then all the 3 sons and 2 daughters families (12 adults & 17 children) went there for a Sunday roast lunch, and then sandwiches, salad, and grannies home made cakes and pies for tea about 6 hours later. Her cooking was amazing, and her home always smelled of fresh bread, cakes baking, tea, roast meat, scented flowers, and old waxed furniture.
Thanks for making those wonderful forgotten memories come alive again.

[johnking]

As an ex-beekeeper, I agree that beekeeping is a great hobby. We never made that much honey - about 12 gallons/year, which we usually just gave away to our fellow church members !!

[Sonnet]

LOVE the video. I'm a former beekeeper. I became one accidentally when my daughter cam in from the barn one day and told us that there were bees in the end of the shed. My husband said he'd hop into town for spray. My daughter quickly said, "I said BEES." Thankfully we'd been planning on getting into bees and had boxes, frames, the whole kit ready to go. I very carefully placed a box with frames ready to go and they moved in. It was super(no pun intended).

[pwbpeter]

I was given perhaps 30 Lbs of dirty wax from a friends late fathers hives I cleaned it up like you did, what i found was to use silicon cooking molds to pour it into, it pops out of them nicely . then you can remelt them for what ever you need. great video !

[sorayakhan]

Does anyone else find this gentleman's voice extremely comforting..!? 😄 Thanks for the vid!

[axelordever]

Small tip for parchment paper so it doesn't try to fly off on its own and fit molds better. Crinkle it all up and smash it into a ball. Get as much fine webfold lines in it, and you'll be able to shape it very easily to fit molds and other shapes. This has come in use for me for cooking and other kitchen stuff but I can't see why it would apply in helping you in make some nice, square beeswax cakes.

[michellelyman]

regarding your wife's baking pans - when you said "there's quite a bit at stake right now" I literally busted out laughing - your sense of humor is divine and this is hands down one of the coolest videos I've seen in a long time!

[natandessie]

This is the best video I have seen for removing wax. I never did it correctly. Now I feel like I will be able to :)

[DKFX]

Love the patterns the wax forms when it cools down. Looks like the wax remembers the honey comb structure from its former life.

[jtreview]

Literally never done anything with beekeeping or wax making or watched any videos about either of them, don’t know how I’ve ended up here but it was very enjoyable

[SebastianBlix]

I'm a software engineer living in one of the most densly populated urban metropoli in the world (Tokyo), but now I know how to make a candle from pure beezwax. Thank you for this very edutaining video!

[valerierh]

Couple of ideas, maple syrup finishing filters are washable and reusable. Even after filtering maple syrup that is 219 degrees. Might be helpful, especially with the strong loops attached that you can thread a stick or more through to hold it up. Maybe put some screen over the wax while it cools to keep the bee 🐝 off. Either way if I were doing what you are I’d invest $19 in 12 maple syrup finishing filters. Totally worth it!! 👍🏼

[sethraelthebard]

The most beautiful part of this video for me was seeing that glorious amber gold pour from the bucket into those cake pans. Beeswax is such an amazing substance. So versatile in it's applications.