Working with wax
By Thomas Voaden of Blockley Primary School
On the 24th
of November 2005 Martyn Cracknell and his wife Cheryl did a talk all about wax:
How wax is made.
Wax is made in little white flakes by 8 glands on the bee. If there is too much wax, the flakes fall onto the floor of the beehives,
Beekeeper then
collect the wax either from the white fallen flakes or from the cappings when
they extract the honey. If you have a large colony of bees you will probably
get a lot of wax, if you have a small colony of bees then you get a small amount
of wax. The good quality wax comes when the weather is good and the tempeture
is right. Try not to wear a woolly jumper or any thing which is woolly when
sorting out wax because the hair from the jumper will go in the wax.
About wax.
Wax is an energy rich material and the bees have to “burn” 6 pounds of sugar to make a pound of wax. Good quality wax for shows should be collected and stored together for when you want to render it. Lots of old black comb is not wax at all. There is a layer of silk from the larvae. Larvae creates pooh at the bottom of cells. To clean old black comb, put old wax in rain water and you will get better results. Tap water reacts and makes scum. If you have got old dried up wax you can use it for a fire lighter, it works perfectly well. Always use rain water to soak the wax. A very small amount of wax comes from these old black cells cells. Use a hot filter to get rid of the gunk in your wax.
How to make a rolled beeswax candle
You will need: A pear of scissors, A sheet of beeswax and
A candle wick
1.Take a sheet
of beeswax foundation
2. Cut it from one corner to another with your pair of scissors.
3. Get your wick and put on one edge of the half-cut sheet of beeswax.
4.Fold the beeswax over the wick.
5.Keep on folding it over and over until it is fully folded over.
6.If there is lots of wick left on the bottom of the candle
cut it off.
7.There you should have your rolled beeswax candle.
It was my favourite bee talk ever.