During the harvesting and processing of honey, wax is produced as a bi product and this can be processed to increase on the returns from the bee keeping business.
Bees protect their honey from dripping in the frames by capping it with wax. During extraction of honey, the honey is first uncapped by cutting off the bees wax that is covering the honey. To process the wax, first strain the bees wax for about 48 hours to extract as much honey from the wax as possible.
Processing bee wax
After straining the bees wax, heat the wax in a double boiler to melt. Do not be in a hurry to have the wax melt by heating it directly over fire. All the wax cappings wont fit in the saucepan at once so first put little and add others after melting of the previous.
After melting the bee wax, strain it again into a dish in order to clean it and allow it to sit over night. Excess honey sinks at the bottom while the bees wax solidifies at the top of the dish.
Using a double boiler, melt the bees wax again and refilter to ensure that the bees wax is clean enough.
Pour the melted wax into containers shaped in different shapes. The wax will solidify into shapes of the containers in which you poured them in.
