Best way to process beeswax

[eltalia]

I ended up building a solar wax melter out of an electric frying pan.

If you unload that payload and replace it with maybe a half-cup of product you
might get to see how solar wax melters work.
That's a huge "might".
What you are missing is the engineering of scale in exposure to irradiance.
Without bogging down in technical jargonese I can tell you that at lat.18S we get
around 1200 watts per square metre of irradiance on most days between
September and March (10AM-2PM), wet season days aside. That level of sunlight
(irradiance) on a sheet of roof iron with maybe 1.8 square metres of exposure will
melt 20litres of cappings inside of two hours.
Do you get the idea it is the area of exposure doing the work and not so much the
sun on the actual wax...?.. which is where I am  thinking you went with your trial as
your perspective.
Go to the dump and get a sheet of old roofing iron. That, and those car windows you
mentioned earlier, you will be up and running in no time with your building skills.

Bill

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https://livingonsolarpower.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/basic-solar-energy-math/
Solar Irradiance and Solar Constant
Solar irradiance is the amount of sunshine incident on a unit area and is typically expressed in watts per square meter (W/m ) or kilowatts per square meter (kW/m ).
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[220]

This is one I built last year from crap I had sitting around

It hold 3 full depth frames, haven't given it a real good run but no doubt it works.
I try to use baskets so I can keep a gap between what I am melting and the tray. The tray very quickly heats up to above the melting point of wax and anything that drips through stays liquid and quickly runs away.

[omnimirage]

when you say area of exposure, are you referring to the size of the glass? Does the volume of the unit matter at all? So if I took a large amount of the wax out, it should melt better?

[Acebird]

It just seems that the really gunky, dark stuff in there won't break down. Is dark, brood filled capped harder to melt into wax?

Yes because the cocoons act like a sponge.  You need a way to compress the comb after the wax hits melting point.

[eltalia]

(edited)

"when you say area of exposure, are you referring to the size of the glass?"

The glass is there to refract the sunlight (irradiation), cappings will meltdown without
it but less efficiently.
As an aside, the glass from a solar hotwater panel is built especially for max refraction.
It looks opague to the eye but is actually way more efficient than clear glass. Edwards (R)
unfortunately has been absorbed by Rheem (R) so who knows what the product is now
but these old panels are worth every cent of the asking price if only for the value of the
glass;
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/trott-park/building-materials/rheem-edwards-solar-hot-water-panels/1173659879

"Does the volume of the unit matter at all?"

Relative to what quantities of cappings you wish to process, yes.

"So if I took a large amount of the wax out, it should melt better? "

A smaller amount would meltdown yes... certainly allow you to see the process in
quicktime. I would offer the rate then would demand a fulltime job feeding cappings into
the mix. Hardly desirable.

Something handy to know?
Aluminium clogs fibre cutting/grinding discs and will cause said disc to explode - possibly
causing serious injury to the person where Raybans (R), Stubbies (R) and thongs are
standard personal protection gear worn.
For the home handyman it is drill hole(holesaw) and cut with a jigsaw - or hacksaw - as the
preferred safe efficient method. Those blades may clog also however the clearing/lubricating
compound to use with aluminium is, guess what..?... beeswax!
Trust that helps some.

Bill