Delicious first year honey!
Since this is our first real year with bees, we are learning all kinds of things. Such as how to do hive inspections and what problems to lookout for. This journey has been a seriously fun; despite the occasional bee sting. A side benefit of having a couple of beehives, besides the honey, is harvesting some of the wax produced along with the honey.
Melting beeswax in crock pot.
There are all kinds of uses for beeswax. One of which is furniture polish. It was surprisingly easy.
One of the great things about furniture polish is that the ratio of wax to oil is not exact; if you want your polish to be solid, reduce the amount of oil slightly. If you want it to be more of a paste, increase the amount of mineral oil. Store your polish in any container with a lid. I used a small plastic freezer container from the dollar store.
First, process your wax. If you are using wax fresh from the hive like I did, then it will need to be cleaned first. This is accomplished by melting the honeycomb after the honey is removed, then straining it to remove any remaining junk. I melted my wax in an electric crock pot. I used a colander with a couple of paper towels to strain my wax.
Just add mineral oil to the melted wax. I used a ratio of 1 part oil to 3 parts wax. Stir it together and put into whatever container you are going to use.
One thing to remember; if you are as clumsy as I am, mix this up outside. Spilled wax is a pain to clean up especially if it is spilled on carpet. My beeswax polish looked a lovely honey red as you can see in the above pic. After about an hour it will solidify into a creamy tan block. To use, rub some onto a clean rag or paper towel and rub into the wood surface. This is a great finish to put on wooden ware or cutting boards. I use it on many of the woodturnings that I make.
I know that some of you may be saying to yourself, “where am I supposed to get beeswax? I don’t have a beehive or know anyone with a hive.” Just do a search for beeswax online. I found a number of suppliers with very reasonable rates.