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Why is my beeswax crumbly?

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mtnb:
So yesterday I rendered my first beeswax. I made two batches. For the blocks I used some older comb which had had brood in it and the other one was purely one time used honey comb. Why did THAT turn out the way it did? Now that it's dry it's really fine and crumbly. The ONLY other difference was, that I didn't have very much of it and poured it into a much too big a pot so it couldn't maybe combine very well? The layer was so fine over the water that I basically just skimmed it off the top with my fingers. Can I still use that in the lotion I'm planning on making today? It's beeswax, or? lol Like I said, first time. Why is it so crumbly?


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Michael Bush:
>Now that it's dry it's really fine and crumbly.

Was there a lot of honey in it?  Sometimes the honey doesn't separate out like water does.  The bottom of any wax is always crumbly and full of pollen bits.

mtnb:
Here's what I did. Water into pot, heat, melt wax into that, strain off slum gum, strain into bucket with a little water in bottom and beeswax formed on top. At least on the one. lol (I remelted the layer of BW I got after I scraped that stuff off, and strained it through pantyhose into the moulds.) I did both the same way except for that last melting and straining.

I figure any remaining honey would have melted away in the water. ? I did taste it and when I put it into my mouth it clumped together like wax. I did make some lotion with it just now and it definitely still had those pollen bits you speak of, but melted and became oil nicely. Is that what that is? Pollen? So I can feed it to my bees? I was gonna try that anyway. On youtube the fat beeman said that dark stuff you scrape off is #1 propolis? Is that right?

But why did that one turn out so crumbly? It feels like clumps of wet sand when you crumble it through your fingers.

mtnb:
What I mean is, wouldn't #1 proplis be the stuff I scrape directly off the hive?

PhilK:
I rendered some wax the other day and it's made up of a lot of tiny little wax balls it seems, very crumbly. Not sure why.

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