Good looking wax with a bad odor?

[B&N Bees]

I just finished cleaning up some wax from scraps of burr comb. The wax had some honey and larva in it and had set in a bucket I was collecting it in over the course of a month or so. This was my first attempt at reducing bee's wax and after much review of the various posts here I decided to use a double-boiler to heat it and a clean tee-shirt to filter it. Everything seemed to go well. I heated the wax and poured it through the tee-shirt into a plastic container. The wax came to the top and residual honey/small trash settled to the bottom. After it set up I popped the wax out and rinsed it. The color is the color of yellow butter, however, the smell is a bit rancid. :confused: The wax is very clean with no trash embedded in it. What did I do wrong?

Thanks,
Chris

[iddee]

The honey was probanly too watery and fermented. I've had that happen and the smell it leaves is not very pleasing. I'm surprised you got through the heating before you noticed it.

[B&N Bees]

Actually, I noticed a slight bad smell while heating, but attributed it to the dead brood in some of the comb. What you say makes perfect sense, however. None of this comb was capped and the honey was by no means cured.
I suppose such comb should be rinsed when it is collected to avoid fermentation?

[Dick Allen]

The wax had some honey and larva in it and had set in a bucket I was collecting it in over the course of a month or so.
What did I do wrong?any kind of meat, whether it’s beef or bee larvae, is going to get pretty ripe after setting in a bucket for a month. Next time what might work, if you don’t have time to remove the larvae, is to keep your pieces of burr comb in a container in the freezer until you’re ready to melt them down.

I won’t say postively that the odor will go away, but it very well might. When I melt wax, I save the slumgum and when enough of it has accumulated, I remelt it in water, press it through a sieve, and pour it into a mold. That particular stuff generally comes out not with a beeswax/honey aroma, but has more of an earthy/dirt smell to it. After a while that smell has gone away and it does take on the more familiar beeswax aroma. That old slumgum wax still has a darker brownish color to it though.

[beegee]

I have some wax that I heated in water and put through a solar melter a couple of time filtered it and reheated in water. I was trying ot get all the little globs of sediment out of it. It is snow white now but still has sour smell to it. I'm going to try the wax melter one more time tosee if I can get some of the odor out.

[Dave W]

Greeting . . .

I know there are lots of ways to process wax, but here's mine:

1. I use a crock-pot about 2/3 full of water.
2. 1st melt cappings directly in the water, unplug, let wax harden. (will contain "little globs" of sumgum).
3. 2nd melt - Place wax (from above) into container and float inside crock-pot.
4. Pour melted wax through "window screen" to remove sumgum.
5. Re-melt and pour through nylon stocking.

[B&N Bees]

After allowing the block of wax to air out for 24 hours it has lost the rancid smell and actually has a very slight honey smell.

Thanks for the help, information, etc.!