Candle making question

[dunedain05]

I have yet to get my first hive, though I read up all sorts of things about bees and the hive including things I want to do with the hives products.  I do intend to use the bees wax to make candles.  However where do you get the wax?  I know some comb will come off when you harvest the honey but I guess that doesnt seem like that much to me.  And if you took the actual comb out of the hive wouldnt that take away from the structure which is bad? 

[AllenF]

It takes a lot of bees to make candles.  Wax comes from cappings when you extract or from the comb when you crush and  strain to get your honey.   I have a huge 14 gal pail in my basement from the year before last cappings.  This last summer I gave the wax cappings to my hens to eat.  I still have blocks of honey from 3 and 4 years back just sitting in the basement where I was going to make something out of it.  One day I will.  I am just getting lazy. 

[Vance G]

Keep a three pound coffee can in your bee yard and when you scrape off burr comb as you will have to, always save it.  When your cappings off the frames you extract are drip dried.  Let the bees remove the honey still on them or wash the cappings and make mead with the sweetened water.  Save that wax until you have most of a five gallon bucket full.  Then you can melt it and have enough for some candles and lip balm and all the other things wax is good for

[danno]

If you crush and strain then let your bee's rob the wax out you might be surprised at how much wax you can get out of one colony.   Crush and strain is the way most new people go for at least a couple of years.

[canadiyank]

Very new to this all, but did a crush and strain with some of the comb we got when my FIL did a cut-out of a hive at my friend's house. I now have the wax and have read about letting the bees "rob" it. I'm currently doing that with a pile my FIL set out beside the hive but I was wondering, about how long should I leave it there? It's getting up to 86 by the end of the week so I don't want to lose all the wax but I have no idea at all how long it takes them to "rob" it.

[divemaster1963]

It takes about two days. Then just put it in a solar melter.

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[canadiyank]

Thanks! Watched Linda's video about the solar melter...genius!

[tefer2]

You can place the leftovers in a strainer and run it under warm water to rinse the rest out of the wax.

[canadiyank]

Thanks. That's what Linda did in her video. I thought I would try the bees robbing it for a couple days and then rinse the rest. Then try the solar melter.