[cjmcharlotte]

I'm processing (cleaning) wax for the first time so bear with me please.

I put some water and my honey-covered wax from the crush-and-strain process in a double boiler. It melted up nicely and I strained it through cheesecloth into an 8-cup Pyrex measuring cup. (Well, first I poured it into an empty plastic peanut jar but when it started melting I changed my mind!)

I waited and waited for it to cool and harden but pretty much all that remained was yellow foamy, grainy bits and a few small clumps of wax. I presumed that all of the buttery yellow stuff would harden into a decent quantity of wax. I probably put in a five of handfuls of wax remnants.

Am I assuming too much? Is that all the wax I'm going to get from that process? I feel like I lost more to the cheesecloth than wound up in the end! I skimmed the foamy yellow stuff and the wax chunks off, dumped out the honey water into the compost, and remelted the foam and wax in clean water. I restrained it and am now waiting for different results but it sure looks the same

How much wax can I expect to wind up with from 5 deep frames? I ordered 40 lip gloss canisters and now I'm wondering if I'll be able to fill three! Ha! Live and learn!!

 

[honeyshack]

you will not get alot of wax from 5 frames. To put it into perspective, I melt 2 1/2 5 gallon pails of spun wax ( little honey left) and get close to 13-20 pounds, depending on the proplolis and pollen in the wax

 

[rweakley]

forget cheese cloth, I think you would be better off using the paint filters from lowes or HD. As long as the wax and water and plenty hot, I hardly lose any this way. I use the big 5 gallon bucket filter first and then reheat and run through the 400 micron(I think) filter that is shaped like a cone. I tape it to a funnel so it doesn't collapse. I get quite a bit of wax from not too many frames of honey. (crush and strain)

 

[Troy]

Both what rweakley said and honey shack are true, I can attest.

I recently extracted about 10 supers, so 90 frames of cappings wax. I got a 5 gal bucket about 2/3 full, from that I expect to get 3-5 lbs of useful wax.

So from your 5 frames, yeah I'd say you be lucky to fill a few lip gloss tubes.

Doing the math...... If I get 4 lbs of wax from 90 frames of cappings..... then you should expect to get 90/5 is 1/18th as much. 1/18th of 4 lbs is 1/18th of 64 oz is
64/18 oz is 32/9 is almost 33/9 is 11/3 is almost 12/3 is almost 4 oz.

Now if you lose half of that to the cheesecloth filter, then you have 2 oz usable wax.

Not much, but the math works.

Wax is far more rare a hive product than honey. Beeswax should sell for a lot more than it does.

 

[beekeeper_sd]

How much beeswax do you intend to use in your lip balms? The recipe I use makes approx. 50 lip balms and only uses 3 oz. beeswax so, even if you only get a little wax, you should still be able to make some lip balms.