I am a monk at a monastery that produces beeswax candles to sustain ourselves

[Father Ignatius]

Hello...

The reason that I have joined this community, is to glean from the experience of beekeepers on how best to clean and filter the wax that we get to make our candles.

We had three monks at our monastery (about four months, ago), but now we have seventeen. We have to find the best way to filter our beeswax, since we have had to buy dirtier wax, because of the volume of wax that we are now needing to make the candles that we are producing. We are now using 3-4,000 pounds of wax...but we have to increase it toward 8,000 pounds, if not more.

Any help that people can provide...will be greatly appreciated.

We have a wax melter that uses gravity to separate the good from the bad wax...but unfortunately this is a slow process and inefficient process. We would like people to help us in our investigation of using pressure to filter the wax or maybe even using centrifugal force (if this is even possible to clean the wax).

We have used many types of cloth to filter the wax, but they do not last long and they also clog up with wax too quickly. We have tried many different meshes and have found that t-shirts are the best (so far).

We have also read about diatomaceous earth filters (though they are expensive), but have not known anyone that has used them...and if it uses gravity (which we would like to avoid).

Okay for now. Thank you for reading this note. Look forward to conversing.

[NasalSponge]

Welcome! You are going to have to catch the ear of some of the commercial guys I suspect. Most of us are hobbyist and render our wax in a solar wax melter or a crock pot. You may want to repost this in the "Products of the Hive" forum for more exposure. 8)

[Lazer128]

Welcome! I hope you find the answer you seek.

[bhfury]

Welcome

[Honey-4-All]

If you want to "polish" the wax the addition of some industrial strength Hydrogen peroxide drops a lot of the oils from pupa casings in the wax. The stuff is dangerous to use so buyer.. and user.. beware. Not handing out any usage suggestions. You will need to glean those from somewhere else. Cleans up wax nicely.

[Daniel Y]

Some of the ways I have seen for cleaning wax are to filter it or let the particles settle to the bottom of it.

Some I can imagine but have no direct wax experience with and along the lines of centrifuge would be a cyclone type process. BUT that woudl require some outright experimenting if ti works at all.

I can tell you this about cyclone separation. It requires that the particles to be removed are heavier than the material being filtered. I a typical cyclone dust collector it also requires the cleaned material. (Air) rises back up the center of the cyclone before leaving the separator. This requires two 180 degree reversals in the travel of the material. One of which serves in the separating of the heavier particles. This does not sound promising for wax.

heating the wax in a vat and letting the particles settle to the bottom then remove the cleanest wax from the top sounds like a much more doable process.

In all most info I can find says you are in an area you will have to pave the way for. Some method of just letting the nasty stuff settle to the bottom seems to be the most common method.

[squarepeg]

peace be with you father.

have you ever heard of brother adams?

he is a well known monk among the beekeeping community.

the honey sales from the work that he and the other brothers did helped to fund the monestary and it's missions.

he was a brilliant man and his legacy to what we today know about the honeybee is lasting.

hear is some food for thought. if you have a good location and sufficient manpower, you could keep a few hives of honeybees and collect your own pure wax.

(you can also sell or use the honey, and once your beeyard grows to capacity, you might also be able to sell any excess bees as they build and grow).

[AmericasBeekeeper]

Welcome!

[Rader Sidetrack]

Nice tie-in, squarepeg.

While Brother Adam may no longer be with us mortals, his website still is! (well, sort of).
http://www.buckfast.org.uk/site.php?use=bees

[squarepeg]

father,

i just reread your post, and see that you will be processing 8000 lbs. of wax.

unfortunately, a handful of beehives would never yield that much wax.

i wish you well with your efforts, and i am hopeful that you will find a solution.

[Riskybizz]

squarepeg

'hear is some food for thought. if you have a good location and sufficient manpower, you could keep a few hives of honeybees and collect your own pure wax.'


"priceless"

[squarepeg]

oops, 'hear' should have been 'here'.

thanks rb, i think.

[Riskybizz]

Happy New Year Peg............adios from NM..........

[squarepeg]

same to ya man, cheers!