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The fruits of your, well mainly the
bees labour.
Make sure the lid is screwed on tight.
Your very own honey!!!!
The bees will clean the
extracted frames.
Everything laid out and ready to
get started.
Begin scraping from the centre of
a frame, you should be able to feel
the foundation in the middle
quite easily.
Scrape away down to the foundation.
Turn the frame 180degrees and
scrape the other end.
Once you have removed the honey
from both sides drain the remains off.
Using a spoon crush all the cells
walls to release the honey.
Add the honey and wax mixture to
a sieve.
Leave overnight to let the honey
drain out.
Step 5
- You can return the extracted frames to the bees to clean up.
Simply put the frames back on the hive for 24-48hrs and then remove
them. Alternatively you can store the super frames wrapped in plastic
until next year.
Honey is not the only useful thing provided by your bees. All the wax
that is left after the honey has drained out can be converted into lots of
useful things for very little effort.
You can either exchange it for new
foundation or turn it into a variety of products from furniture polish to
cosmetics and candles. Candles are the easiest thing to make with the
wax and silicon baking moulds can be used to pour melted wax into, all
you need to do is add a wick! Here’s how...
You will need
• A bowl
• A large pan
• A sieve or some nylons
• Some moulds preferably silicone
• Some candle wick
Step 1
- You can add any wax that you have collected over the season, for
example any brace comb or wild comb that the bees made. You can also
melt the wax in old brood frames. Remove this by cutting around the
edge with a knife, you will then need to pull the wire out.
Step 2
- Take a large pan and fill it a third full of water and a third full of
wax. Heat the mixture and stir occasionally, you do not need to boil as
wax melts at 64 degrees Celsius.
Step 3
- When all the wax is melted switch take off the heat and pour
through a sieve or even better a pair of nylon tights to filter out any
debris. If you are melting old brood frames they will contain lots of
cocoons from the bees that have hatched and these will be filtered out
along with any dead bees.
Step 4
- Allow to cool. As wax is lighter than water it will rise to the top
and after a few hours a disc of solid wax can be easily removed.
Step 5
- Depending on how good your filtering was there may still be
some debris on the bottom of the wax disc. Scrape this off with a knife
and rinse the wax.
Using the wax