Remains from Wax melting

[Bwar77]

Hey Guys,
new to all this, got a question - I took all my cappings when i extracted and strained out the extra honey. I then put all the strained cappings in a old crockpot, heated till it boiled, let it cool and eventually ended up with about 3lbs of wax. Just need to do a final filtering. So my question, after I removed the wax from the top of the crockpot after it had cooled I was left with a very thick, dark liqued - honey? - just wondering what to do with it if anything. It does taste kind of burnt, have about 2 gallons.... can i feed this back to my bees? Just don't want to waste it if it could be put to use. I'm still trying to figure a different method for melting the cappings, although it did work well. My girlfried jumped the gun on me and we just kept on goin!

Thanks,
Brian

[Bee Bliss]

What some people do is put the cappings in a clean pair of panyhose and slosh that around in a 5 gallon pail of water and feed the honey water to the bees. Others put the cappings inside the hive for the bees to clean in about a week and then remove the cappings. Cappings are then further cleaned by filtering and water methods.

Cappings wax makes the best beeswax candles. However, beeswax must be filtered well or the candle won't burn properly due to a clogged wick.

[Acebird]

It sounds like you were a little inpatient on the straining and had a lot of honey left on the cappings. Now that it is cooked I wouldn't use that sludge for anything. You have the option as mentioned to let the bees clean it, rinse it yourself to be used for mead or let it go down the drain (last resort). I have a pan of last years cappings on the railing of our deck right now for the bees to munch on. As they clean it ( a couple of days) I dump it into a big plastic jug and then add more cappings to the pan. It is a slow process but I don't drown any bees this way.

[Bwar77]

The last batch of cappings I strained for over a week, wrapped in a nylon bag in a black pail with a lid in 85 degree sunlight. But again, i'm new to this. But my main question now is what to do with the remains - the sludge - dump it down the drain? What would be a reason not to feed it back to the bees - due to it being cooked?

[westernbeekeeper]

I had a little of this from some wax melting I did from a cutout last summer. I assumed it is what beeks refer to as slumgum, or am I wrong? I also thought it was maybe old honey.

[Cedar Hill]

As tempting as it may be, don't feed that dark left over honey to your bees, it is caramelized (overheated), meaning it will kill your bees. Flush it down the drain completely out of sight of the bees. The substance left over after melting down old combs (not fresh cappings) and straining the wax out, is called slumgum. It is filled with old cocoons covered with a little wax. Much better to put out the fresh cappings about 3 to 4 hours before dusk and have the bees clean them, and then retrieve them at night fall - don't forget them otherwise there may be robbing the next day. OMTCW

[Acebird]

Ask Michael Bush about heating honey. It creates a nasty chemical HMF's. I am on my second Manhattan so I may not have it right.

[BeeCurious]

Ask Michael Bush about heating honey. It creates a nasty chemical HFC's or something. I am on my second Manhattan so I may not have it right.

You are thinking of HMF...

[D Coates]

I add a little water to cappings if I'm going to crock pot them. Once it's cooled I pour off the brown "honey" then add +/- 1:1 syrup and feed it back to my nucs.