BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER > CRAFTING CORNER

Recovering Wax

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Terri Yaki:
I didn't see a suitable spot to put this so I'll put it here. I've read several ways to recover wax and used a combination of those methods to filter some yesterday. My mentor uses a crock pot and an expired T-shirt. They put water in the bottom of the crock pot and suspend the T-shirt and put the wax above it and let it heat for a while. I have some pretty big cheesecloth bags that I've had for longer than I can remember so I used them instead of a T-shirt and it worked amazingly well. the comb that I used was as old and dark as it could be and when I was done, it still held its comb shape but I don't think there's much wax left in it, if any. The wax dripped through the center of the cheesecloth so the crockpot didn't get all waxed up and the disc popped right out after it cooled off. Here's pictures of the disc. I don't see any reason to re-filter it.

The15thMember:
That looks great!  I do something similar, but I don't have anywhere to suspend the wax, so I just let it the cheesecloth bag float in the water, and then remove the bag with all the slumgum before I let it cool. 

Terri Yaki:
The cheesecloth bags that I have are pretty big. I was able to tuck the tops of them under the crock pot legs and still have enough cloth to place the comb in. When I removed the remaining comb, the bag wasn't clogged up with wax.

The15thMember:
So you just had the whole crock pot covered in the bag basically?  I'd be worried that would be a fire hazard, but not sure if that's rational or not.

Terri Yaki:
That is correct but I had the pot on low and wasn't the least bit concerned about a fire.

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