Playing with wax

For me, one of my favorite things to do is playing with the wax the bees make. For some its all about the honey but I love the wax.
Bees are amazing little creatures, and the  fact that they make so many by products is genius. Did you know that the glands of worker bees convert the sugar contents of honey into wax , which oozes through the bee's small pores to produce tiny flakes of wax on their abdomens. Workers chew these pieces of wax until they become soft and moldable, and then add the chewed wax to the honeycomb construction. Like how did they come up with that???
So when i scrape off the burr comb or cappings when taking honey, i wash it and let it dry. I throw the bits and pieces in a bucket and leave it until i get enough to melt down.
Just recently i tried a new method of melting it down. I looked at the way a solar melter works and applied it to the oven. It worked like a charm. Next year i am hoping to make a solar melter so then i can do it outside.
So basically what i did was put a oven proof dish in the oven, i added some water in the bottom of that, oh maybe a inch. On top of the oven proof dish i placed a old cooling rack (you wont be able to cool your cookies on it anymore so make sure its a old one) Then i laid a couple sheets of paper towel over top the rack and spread out the wax bits.
Place in a low oven, i normally turn the oven on to somewhere between 200 and 225 degrees. It will take a while to melt all the wax.  Once all the wax melts it filters thru the paper towel  and lands in the water. Remove from the oven and let cool til the wax solidifies. Here's a few pictures

Add water in bottom of dish

                                               

                       Paper towel filter over dish with melted clean wax floating on the water

 This is what to expect the paper towel to look like, but it depends on how clean your wax is when you start

Being frugal I hate to waste things, so after the paper towel had dried out, i broke it into pieces and we use to to start fires with. It works really good and its not gone to waste.
Have fun.

   

Bye bye summer

Well it is October 17th. All signs of summer have gone and fall is definitely here. (even hints of winter are appearing)
I have managed to blunder through another season of beekeeping with hopes of having more time to care for the bees. But with all the forest fires and extreme heat, and a really busy tourist season, the motel kept me way to busy.
With the heat and smoke I didn't really expect the bees to do as well, honey wise, as they did. Such little troopers they are.

After we got the hives ready for winter, except for the wraps, the weather turned warm again at the end of Sept. The bees were busy collecting a few different kinds of pollen. By Oct 5th the weather started to turn cooler. Lots of frosts overnight. While checking on the bees one day, we noticed fighting going on with the hive we had combined during the summer. I also noticed the odd wasp just walking right in the front door. So that afternoon we tore the hive apart and was sad to find quite a few dead bees, no queen and not much honey in the lower box. There was still lots in the super and the extra attic box which housed a few frames of honey. Most of what was left of the bees were in the attic box, tending to those frames of honey.
I was sick. Was it robbing? Guess we won't know for sure. So once again we packed up what was left and deposited the remaining bees into a neighbouring hive.
Oct 6th
Went to work making 2-8lb candy boards. James was so nice to make me extra frames this year for all the hives.
Oct 10th
Put the tarps around the north and east sides of the fence enclosures. It was such a cold windy day and was snowing like crazy. We had gotten about 3-4 inches. Jeepers I guess winter is really coming......
To be continued