STEAMED WAX 

Over the weekend, I cut out the beeswax from a score of damaged frames. The waxy wood makes for great firelighters and the wax is worth more than the honey it may have originally contained. Later I moved on to another 50 or so old frames, still in a functional condition, that I wanted to steam, sanitize and re-use. There are, of course, several ways of reclaiming wax, but my preferred route is to use our helpful steamer. It’s a stainless steel drum, the size of a large dustbin, into which pressurised steam is fired from above, clean wax trickles from a spout at the bottom, and larger detritus, like cocoons, etc, gets filtered out.

Today the steamer has been in fairly constant use and several kilos of good wax are now cooling in the shed (to be further refined, sold, exchanged or just made into candles). It’s so nice to be able save money on equipment costs and make a little seed money at one and the same time. There’s the circular economy in a nut shell.