Solar Wax Extractor

Over a period of time doing inspections and extracting honey a pile of dirty wax begins to grow- reluctant to waste anything beekeepers tend to keep it in boxes until it can't be ignored. Cleaned wax can be used for lots of things- candles, lotions and potions as well as being swapped for new wax foundation. The problem is cleaning the wax- solar wax extractors are used by lots of beekeepers but they are expensive to buy for what the average beekeeper would need it for.
So, a search on one of the beekeeping blogs http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.co.uk/  I follow produced a home made verion- something of a Heath Robinson afair but well within my means!

Step one was to gather the equipment needed- a polystryene box ( used to transport broccoli to the school kitchen)- this was painted black and lined with foil. All these things easy enough to find. Then a tub with a couple of inches of water covered with kitchen roll held in place by an elastic band is placed inside. The wax is scrunched into balls and placed on top of the kitchen paper. A piece of glass is put over the top of the box and the whole things put in the sunniest spot you can find - usually a tricky thing to do in Nottingham but with the recent hot weather , no problem!

Black paint on the outside to absorb the heat.

Water in the tub covered with kitchen paper



Wax - brace comb, capping etc.




Ready for the sun!

We could see results within an hour, the wax melts and drips through the paper leaving the gunge behind.





 

The results are amazing - I separated the types of wax- the cappings gave the paler wax and the brace comb a rich butter colour. The only thing now is to decide what to use the wax for!