Rendering Beeswax...

Beekeeping

Last summer when I was working in the top bar hive, I accidentally dropped a couple of honeycomb when I was trying to "fix" it and get it more straight.  I did not want to be wasteful so we strained out the honey and I attempted to collect the wax.  Let's just say it was VERY messy and not too successful.  I was just too busy to try and clean it up at that time.  I hear of a lot of beekeepers putting their wax in the freezer until they can get around to working with it.  So, that is what I did...

Last weekend, I finally decided to try and clean up that wax.  Also, I had added some more to it so I had that to render too.  Let me say that I was REALLY dreading this (and had been putting it off for weeks!).  It was not fun the first time.  It was a mess and it did not come out as "clean" as I was hoping.  So, I have just been putting this off.  I "googled" rendering beeswax and the first article that popped up looked promising and much easier than the procedure I tried last summer.  Find that tutorial HERE.

 I melted the wax down and then strained it though some cheesecloth into a cardboard milk carton.

 It was that easy and came out so nice and clean!  I was SO excited to find an easier way to harvest our wax!

So, what do you do with beeswax?  I used it to make lip balm and lotion bars for Christmas gifts.  Unfortunately, since I had not taken the time to render my own beeswax before Christmas, I just bought some.  Just add shea butter and coconut oil and you are set!

Here are a couple of recipes/tutorials that I used to make the lotion bar and lip balm...just click on the pictures and it will take you to the website articles...

Birthday!

As you may have seen on Facebook, Mark turned 16 years old this past week!  I did meet my goal of getting the business plan done.  I am going put it up on the blog in a couple of weeks.  I am sending it to the Small Farms Extension people at the U of I this week.

We went bowling for Mark's birthday and he really enjoyed it!