Now that I made a solar wax melter, I have more wax than I need for beekeeping. What do you guys do with your excess wax?
I carved a self portrait today. Ok, I am no Madame Tussauds, but it is actually quite good…
Seriously, any great ideas apart from wax sculptures?
Some beekeeping supplies shops buy wax or take it as a part of payment. Not sure about minimum quantities they happy to deal with.
I use wax to protect some parts of hive from moisture inside.
Cheers mate, I don’t think it will cover the cost of travel I think with my volume.
I’m having an interest in what can be done with small quantities that can be useful around the house.
What parts of the hive do you wax to prevent water damage? The inside seems to be taken care of by the bees, and the outside I paint.
It is mainly about horizontal surfaces above bees - crown board, migratory lid. Surfaces where vapor condenses in cold weather and mold starts to grow. I wrote about it in some details here.
That’s a brilliant idea. I reluctantly painted under the roofs when I started to notice water damage. Was going to paint the upper side of the crown boards too. I’ll wax them instead.
Thanks!
Here’s a good one:
I’ve used the wax I’ve collected to make small votive candles and to reinforce thread or cording. Once I rolled a section of comb flat with a rolling pin, put a long wick at one end and rolled it up into a candle. Crude, but effective!
Clean wax is of value to any bee gear shop, over here it sells to them for $22/kg. You can value add when you have enough and sell it on GumTree. There is a demand for it from candle makers, balm makers, craft people and surf shops.
Cheers
Buy some moulds and make fun candles for all seasons.
Cheers Eva, candles would be an obvious one, and made from natural beeswax they leave a very pleasant smell when burnt. Do you use the ones you make? I have to give them a try.
I do! Haven’t collected enough to sell or give away yet, so just using them at home when I have them.
I’ve put them in little pots or cups from the thrift shop, or reused one I bought. You can buy wicks with the little metal round attached for anchoring onto the bottom before filling.
There are so many nice moulds, I’ve browsed but not bought any yet - how bout you, Dean?
They look awesome @Webclan, they really are. I have enough to make just one. I’m inspired by @AdamMaskew’ horizontal hive and if I make one it will be just standard frames I reckon, so I can harvest the wax comb too.
The best thing is, I’m learning a lot about beeswax. Particularly about purifying it. There is honey and propolis in it. My theory is that burning beeswax candles puts a breathable amount of propolis into the air. Good for health.
Indeed. I know that paraffin candles are dirty and unhealthy to breath in fumes, beeswax candles are also said to ‘purify’ the air. Whether that is measurable I don’t know, but they at least burn smokeless and cleaner.
Beeswax cloth wraps would be another one that uses smaller amounts of wax.
Even in my LL I get very little wax as I only harvest cut comb. I don’t want to have flow frames and a spinner.
I will do at some point with the nursery kids at work as part of thier ongoing education about thier bees and FlowHive
How sweet! Those little ones are lucky 
I’ll never forget making candles as a kid using the tiny milk cartons we had at lunch. It was such a feeling of invention to open the top all the way up, tie a small stone to one end of a wicking string and a pencil to the other, and be allowed to help pour the melted wax in.
What shop do you sell to get $22 Pete? Last time I sold some (Burnett ) They gave me $17. (At the time she remarked how clean it was).
I would buy any fairly clean beeswax for $20 for my candle experiments. Let me know, I pick up from northern NSW to Gold Coast.
