Beeswax Candles

This post could also be titled "Why Beeswax Is Best Handled by People Who Have Patience"

Mark went out of town. Whenever that happens, I try to carve out time to do things I enjoy so that when we're both home, we can spend time together.

The only picture I took that conveys a sense of competence & lack of mess-making prowess.

That's a nice way of saying I can't do crafty stuff with him in the house.  Because, let's face it: crafty stuff = mess making. I have to get out all the stuff, figure out how to do it, do the crafty thing, and clean up.  This take a long time, and sometimes, the process is a lot messier than the product would lead you to believe. My OCD husband does not like messes.

"Let's just do a couple of candles, just a bit 'o wax," she said.

Today I got the clever idea to try my hand for a second time at making beeswax candles.  I have the pot, the molds, the wicks, and a supply of beeswax. I was bothered with the cracks that formed in the initial batch, so I read up on the subject and hoped today would be different.

Melted wax, reflection of myself in tea kettle.

 

It might have been, were I a person who had patience. Alas, there was much mess making.  Then, I decided, since I already had wax drippings on the counter and floor, why not just melt down all the wax we've been accumulating and pour it through cheesecloth so it would be cleaned up, in one place, and ready for whatever I wanted to do with it.

Part of our stash of wax. No, not all of it!

A loaf pan of clean wax.

That was not a good idea, really.  I got distracted from the candles. I didn't watch and fill.  Then I panicked and overfilled. Then I yanked the wick out of a votive candle trying to get it out of the mold -- a mold I had sprayed mold release into.Then I forgot to pour the French vanilla fragrance sample I'd gotten into the melted wax while it was in the pot so I poured it into the mold and it hardened the wax before I could stir it due to the temperature difference.

Trying to keep the wicks straight. But overfilled molds = clips and sticks stuck to candles!

As I was pouring up pots of beeswax, I'd try to pour the dregs into a small bowl to keep the honey and detritus out of the beautiful, clean wax in the loaf pans. Instead of waiting for the wax to rise to the top and harden, I tried to skim some off the top, which made a mess of the entire bowl.

Just one small part of the carnage.

I spent nearly three hours slaving over a double boiler, and ended up with 8 small candles, none of which are perfect.Why did I think this was a fun way to spend some free time, again?

I have to say, I am pleased with the loaves of wax. If I were sane, I'd sell them to someone and give up the idea of crafting with them altogether . . . 

The Solar Wax Melter

In an ideal world, honey would be relatively easy to harvest, the wax could be rendered with ease into a pure product to use in making other items, and clean-up would be minimal.

In reality, as one local expert said to Mark recently: "People get into it because of the bees, and get out of it because of the honey."

Honey is sticky. Every pest in a 3-mile radius figures out you've got some of it. And when you have vast quantities of old honey comb, you quickly realize there has to be a better way to deal with it than in your own kitchen.

Trust me: we tried the frugal method. I wrapped comb in cheesecloth, put it in a Crock-Pot, poured boiling water over it, and ended up with 1) a mess; 2) a broken wooden spoon; 3) a ruined mesh strainer; 4) a nasty bog of brackish water in my Crock-Pot; and 5) a buttery yellow disc of wax with brown goo in it. Verdict: we'll have to remelt and filter again, maybe through a coffee filter.

As Mark began migrating colonies and bringing home buckets full of comb, we decided to invest in a solar wax melter. Yes, you can build them yourself. There are many designs on the Internet. But we didn't have the time or skills. So Mark did the research, talked to a nice man in Wisconsin who builds them, and after what felt like an eternity, it arrived.

So today is our first attempt at using it. We have a bunch of old comb sitting in a large disposable aluminum pan lined with cheese cloth and door screen. A hole in the end should allow the melted wax to drain into the large loaf-shaped disposable aluminum pan.

My fingers are crossed.