Love this type of information, and you share it all so clearly. Thank you. I am curious... when cutting off the caps, why do you cut up first?

Here’s an idea: if you weigh down the nylon stocking with rocks or something heavy before putting the wax and slum in it, you’d be able to make it sink in the water. The wax would melt in the hot water and float to the top. The solids would stay in the stocking in the water with the rocks. This way you’d only have to render this stuff once! After rendering you’d be able to pour off the wax layer and stop once you hit the water layer, and have clean filtered wax. Maybe something to try?

The big box stores sell "Elastic Top Paint Strainers" for pretty cheap. They are made to fit over a 5 gallon bucket and thats what I filter all my honey though. It would work the same for straining the wax as well. I don't know many nylon socks that are designed to fit over a stock pot or a bucket.

My wax melting/processing problems went away when I built a solar melter. With the right filtering I get pure wax from the nastiest comb.

Good video that helped me a lot. Thanks for putting in the time/effort to make it.

Thank you! I was thinking there had to be a simpler way to render wax, this is perfect!

Thanks, great info... seems simple enough.

Very helpful information. Thank you!

What you need is a deep double boiler setup. Heating the lower boiler of water and letting the heat from that heat the upper boiler makes sure nothing in the upper boiler gets scorched. Then you put your stockings or pillowcases of burr comb in the bottom of the upper boiler with some weights on the corners of the fabric to hold them at the bottom of the space, and fill it with water so they're well covered. As it simmers, all the wax will melt and float to the surface, leaving only non-soluble stuff inside the fabric. The water will still be filthy with everything either soluble or small enough to get out of the fabric, so the underside of the wax will be dirty too and need further cleaning - but none of the wax will have been wasted. You can give the solids left in the cloth to your chooks or the compost bin and know you haven't lost a single drop of wax in them.

Great instructions... thanks bunches

Good information - thank you! Gave me an idea for loading the nylons - a 2' or so piece of 4" PVC with a pvc coupler to hold the nylon onto the pipe.

Great video, I'm new to beekeeping in South Australia and I've just done my first harvest from one hive and was wondering how the Heck I was going to render down the wax, this has given me ideas of what to do! Thanks! OOOoooo and I just subscribed on 12 March 2022

Good information.

Thank you!!! I'm about to try that.

I’ve used paint strainer mesh pretty effectively.

Fun to watch 😊

Now to get the spare room just for processing frames and honey.

Once the wax is in the hose, you need to place them into a deep fryer filled with water, the wax will melt and then you place some ting heavy to keep them on the bottom. Once it cools, all the wax will rise and the slum gum will be on the bottom. And hopefully, you dont have a layer of slum attached to the wax round.

thanks for the info. am going to try my first rendering with 5 gallons of wax.

Thank Ya !!! Great Info !!!

They sell paint filters that fit 5 gallon buckets

Nice trick with the nylons. Your wax may be getting over heated in that cooker. Too much heat will reduce the nice aroma and darken the color. Cheese cloth works great as well.

The story time at the end caught my attention and I have a cautionary tale to tell. I had been stung several times since beginning bee keeping, without much reaction other than swelling, redness and itching at the site. However, WHERE you get stung can make a huge difference, as evidenced by this gentleman's reference to the sting on his temple. One day I was stung on my hand while watering some plants on the opposite side of the yard. The skin on my hand is very thin and the sting was just above a prominent vein. Your hand, like your scalp and face, is a very vascular place (meaning dense capillary beds) so the bee venom is taken up into your blood stream very fast. Within minutes I was experiencing the classic symptoms of anaphylaxis. The palms of my hands and soles of my feet began to itch. By the time I got into the house and took 50mg of Benadryl, my heart was racing (because my blood pressure was dropping), the mucosa of my mouth began to itch and tingle, my lips began to swell and I knew I was in some real trouble. By the time I was able to dial 911, my vision was all but gone due to the pupils of my eyes dilating to the point every thing was a blank white field, with a narrow ring of sight around the edges. I also have asthma and, in addition to the Benadryl, I used my rescue inhaler, but in the ambulance still began to have difficulty breathing. Working around bees is serious business and, in my opinion, only a moron approaches a hive full of bees without protective clothing, but you see videos all the time of people who cavalierly wear nothing in the way of protection. It doesn't make you more professional, just more at risk. Although you may not have problems now, allergies tend to develop due to exposure to allergens and you never know when the next sting will be the one that gets you a lights-and-siren ride to the ER. I was lucky. I now have an epi pen in my suit pocket and my cell phone right next to it any time I am working with my bees. Ironically, severe allergies, like Hay fever, etc, are often treated with de-sensitization therapy, which exposes a person to increasing amounts of the offending agent, so his comments about his reactions diminishing over the summer is correct also.

you may want to build a warming box to heat up the capping to extract more honey. I use a 5 gallon bucket with honey gate I Leave the honey gate open and place a quart canning jar to harvest more honey. The more you cut up comb the better it works

For the longest time, i was afraid of using woman stockings. Afraid it would melt. Yes Nylon stocking will filter > hot bees wax and honey as well ~ Use steam on a cheese press. Press the stocking of wax ~ get about every bit of it - You can get steam machines every where all different sizes

I use the panty hose method too, and do it twice too, and then do the scraping under the wax cake whilst it’s still slightly warm, it’s easier than when it’s totally cold.

Use queen size. You could also use a 6 inch x 2 foot pocket pipe for your stuff sacks. You could also use a laundry bag.

I will the solar wax melter out of a cooler what type of a refrigerator drawer where the reflector or glass and a pair which I put a few holes in and killed it it got that from Dollar General in a bread pan to catch the clean wax works great

You're supposed to melt the beeswax and then pour it. Through the Stocking. while it's still liquid.

If you really want to strain something, you can buy stainless steel laboratory sieves that go down to very fine apertures. Unlike fabric, you know they're never going to have lint or melt if they get too hot, and you can get them perfectly clean just by putting them in the bottom of a pot of water and boiling it.

lmao BEE KEEPING 101 ~ Never render wax, or honey in your kitchen , that stuff get every where ~ do things in your bee shed or shop! ~ Keep it out of your house! 🤣 They can smell it and target your house. Next you will be fighting your bees, in and out of your home > and they will remember it to, and keep coming back

Was thinking that you could possibly stuff the first part of the wax into the panty hose, and place that into the water, and then once they melt down, you could keep on stuffing, so you could heaps more wax in? I’m always amazed at how wax melts down to hardly any space.

i just use a paint strainer bag. works great.

What do you do with the beeswax after you render it down.

I tried panty hose….for the “Slum Gum””….but it does not work as good as the paint strainers from Lowe’s….And…cheaper….and they don’t run….besides….every thing you use wastes some of the the wax….each application takes a toll on the filtered wax….

I ball up the wax as much as I can before putting it into cheesecloth. Stronger. I use stockings as a final filter. Stretch it over a smaller container or a plastic 16 or 32 oz container and our the wax through to let the wax cool. It's a messy process. You really need to be able to squeeze the slumgum inside the cheesecloth to get all the wax out. Be sure to separate the nasty from the good. Nasty wax is green when you are done. I hate that scum on the bottom of the wax blocks. Wish there was a way to get that out before it dries. I guess you could strain it again but I always get that layer as well.

What temp do you set your electric oven at?

I had a friend who swore that getting stung cured his arthritis. He’d go out to the hives and, I swear, rile them up just sos they’d sting him.😅

That’s awsome. What’s the tool you use to melt down the wax? And the water ratio or does the water ratio not matter? Thanks

try PVC pipe to hold your stocking

Think I'll stick with my steamer, lot less mess ☘️🇮🇪👍👋

how about deeper water and a rack to hold the wax/nylons on the bottom and let the clean wax float to top? appreciate a no drama video

Next time you try to strain your nasty wax with panty hose, melt your wax the way you used to do in your pots. Then put your panty hose stretched over a 6" or 8" piece of pvc pipe (the size of a lady's leg) that is 3' tall. Then pour your wax through the panty hose in one shot. It keeps the wax melted and allows it to all go through but strains all the junk out.

I built a solar melter out of a hole Styrofoam cooler in a glass top on the refrigerator compartment with a pan from Dollar General with a punch some holes in the wax melts out and goes in my bread pan below

I like your uncapping tank more info please, How much & where I could get one etc. Thank You, very informative post.

I’m curious if you could stretch the nylons over a container with no bottom and stuff them with wax that way. Similar to how they fill a sand bag.

what temperature is your pot set at?

Great video! What brand of pan/skillet are you using for cooking the wax down? I can’t tell if it’s an electric skillet or crockpot. That seems like a really good size and much better than a tall stock pot. Can you share the brand and dimensions or maybe where to find a similar one? Thanks so much! 12:19

Question...I'm so new to beekeeping that I don't have a hive yet. What do you do with the "slum gum"? Also you were cleaning off the spoon and strainer, were you using just water?

Thank you, I am in Australia and was wondering what do you call that large electric pan you used?

late to the game, but 5 gallon paint strainer is definitely the way to go, and is reusable a few times at least. i just use a crock pot right now, but i've also noticed that if i leave the lid off, or just partialy on the wax disk will crack just about every time. leaving it on all the way will give you a nice uncracked disk. i think if it cools too fast thats when you get cracks.

Sir, as I am not into honeybees(I hope to bee) Maxant has a spinner that gets all the out, then melt the wax.

Doing great but just a little point for you I noticed your water an wax was boiling in your crockpot. If you are not careful with the boiling it will scorch your wax an turn it real dark . Hope this helps you out and good luck .

If you had a centrifuge with thin mesh sieve it would do great

Whats cooking? Thats one big messy process. Heres an idea skip all those extra steps and use that black pan as your base for a solar melter. Use that miter saw to build a frame box so can tilt that pan in it. Then drill some tiny holes in one side of the pan and make sure to place a paper towel in that corner as your fine filter. Lastly add a catch pan for your clean wax and put a glass top cover on the whole melter and put it in the yard to catch some rays.😆🐝🍻✌🏽

What temp is your crock pot set at? Great video thank you

Do u have to add water to the pan before putting the wax in to render Dow if so how much

Is that water you put the cappings in

JA below beat me with the comment of solar wax melting. I used one for years when I had bees. They are so simple to construct out of scrap stuff it's not funny. I used an old window on top of a box angled to the ground with a filter material getting courser towards the bottom and gives nice clean wax and you chuck the filter stuff away. There are sure to be ideas on YT. In fact look for 'solar wax melter plans'.

I wonder if a laundry wringer would help? And maybe a cheese cloth? I don't know But perhaps its worth a shot😁

id imagine nylons would impart coloring to a liquid when its heated, im not sure but i wouldnt be shocked if it did. if you had a metal screen, that was a millimeter smaller all the way around than your cooking container, you could add all the dirty wax, and water. Then heat it, and at the end put the slightly smaller metal screen on top, and push down like a french coffee press. it would push all the detritus to the bottom, separating the wax & allow you to remove filtered wax from the top of the screen.

Pretty cool. Would any type of hose work, like from the cheaper stores or do you think higher-quality hose would work better?

Bee's Knee Highs!

I’d have just melted that dark wax and then tipped it into the pantyhose to filter

There is always a bit of wax left.

where can I get that knife at 4: 47

👍🥰

What is the nectar source for honey extracted in October?

Best thing to use a 5 gallon paint strainer

Why dont you just melt everything and use the stockings as a filter instead of just filling them with dry stuff?

Why are there so many dead bees? I never have this many.

What do you mean "wet boxes" why does it kill the bees?

How come the bees weren't attacking each other when getting the honey out the boxes and caps???

Melt the wax. Then pour it in the panty hose. Filters better. Stretching the panty hose let's more junk through.

I would use a thick sieve first and use the panty hose at the very ens

Why would you do the dirty first?

Watching a man try to interpret panty hose sizes... 🤣🤣🤣

THATS A LOT OF WASPS YOUR FEEDING

that is just a mess.

LOL NOT fast and NOt easy hahahaha. you fooling yourself.... Heat in a large pot scoop out scrap. Let cool. pour out water scrap remaining crap. filter the rest with paper towel and oven

Your practise of letting the bees clean up the stickies is foolish , and a recipe for disease spreading . It is illegal in every state in Australia , and may also be in America and other beekeeping countries . If you use a barrier system , it is permissible to re-place the boxes on the hive to which they belong , and has the added benefit of keeping your honey in your hives , and not in the feral hive up the road .

Keep your caps to feed your bees during the winter.