cleaning wax

[OhioBeeFarmer]

I have been cleaning some beeswax that I recently purchased and was looking to get some info on cleaning it. I melted the wax in my solar melter while straining it with cheese cloth. After the wax cooled off I remelted it and poured it though some paper towels however, the wax is a little darker than I like and also is somewhat sticky with what appears to be some honey still in the mix. Any suggestion on how to lighten and clean this wax would be very appreciated.

[Michael Bush]

I lightens up nicely in the sun, but other than adding bleach (which I would not do) or H202 (hydrogen peroxide, which I also would not do) I don't of any way to lighten it.

I add water to it to get the honey and the pollen out a bit better. Scraping the bottom until you hit clean wax helps a lot.

NOT forcing it through the cheescloth the last pass helps clean it.

Putting it in somthing that is a bit taller than wide helps concentrate the water soluble, or heavier than wax, impurities on the bottom. Paper half gallon milk cartons are nice for this.

[tarheit]

My process is to melt the wax in water first to remove the honey and impuraties. I fill a stock pot with my cappings, cover it with water and heat until melted. After it cools I can melt just the wax and run it though filter cloth.

[Curry]

Since you have a solar wax melter, try putting the wax in coffee filters inside the wax melter, and letting the wax melt out through the filter. I use 1/8" screen looped in a circle to hold up the filters. This creates perfect wax blocks, except for the honey which ends up on the bottom of the block, and pours right out.

To avoid the honey imperfection, just let the bees clean off the honey in the wax prior to putting in the coffee filters. I never get dark wax using coffee filters, but you can just run the wax through the melter several times and the sun will naturally bleach the wax lighter. I make candles from first pass wax just using the coffee filters... no imperfections.

[Russ]

I, like Curry use the large coffee filters and have had good luck getting clean wax. Try it, I think you will like it.

[beebarf]

I melt it down too with water. But then I run it thru a nylon. Like Michael said dont force it thru, just let it run. if it clogs up, pour more HOT,HOT wax thru to unclog it. I only do 1 frame worth of wax at a time. If I remelt this in water again, and repeat the process It lightens it up quite a bit.

[OhioBeeFarmer]

I've got probably over 1 hundred pounds that I melted via the solar melter. I put the original wax in a cheese cloth bag inside the melter and let it melt through into a pan with normally 1 or 2 inches of water in it. I will look forward to trying some of the suggestions. I will probably remelt and pour directly in to a bucket\pan of water and see if I can clean it out some more. Thanks