Melting wax

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VanceG
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Joined: November 13th, 2015, 5:22 pm

Melting wax

Unread post by VanceG »

I have the equivalent of a couple barrels of black brood comb wax semi powdered as it came out of the frames. Too late I found out it would have been easier to steam it out of the frames in the boxes. I tried processing it in my solar melter but that was unsatisfactory and messy hard work not to mention a low yield of really brown wax.

After hearing how a friend was dealing with the problem. I threw together this method that seems to be working very well for me. I secured an old hive body to a single stack honey pallet and put a trash can liner in to cover the bottom and draped it out over the sides. Next I stacked on another hive body with a hole bored below the handhold and put a metal queen excluder on that topped with a plastic one to make a grate. Then I stacked on a third deep and filled it with the black shredded comb. covered that and put some epe foam on top. Stuck my steam line in the hole in the middle box and turned up the heat on the ruined pressure cooker I use as a steam boiler. Took about three hours for the three gallons of water to be used up. I checked content by picking up and sloshing.

I let this rube goldberg cool for several hours and found a yield of a 3/4" thick box size cake of really pretty high quality wax. It was floating on top of the water from the condensed steam trapped in the bag. Not a lot of adhering propolis, though there was some balls of it that must have been boyant and floated up. I imagine a second run of a collection of these cakes will result in a good product. At my cost for propane in outrageously priced BBQ size tanks is about $3. It is winter and time is available and I can do other things while watching the water boil.
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