Bee - light candles

How about this for a nice relaxing way to spend a rainy July Sunday afternoon?
Making beeswax tea light sized candles...

Gather all the tools for the job...beeswax, tea lights, a length of wick, scissors, and wick retainers...

Cut lots of small wicks  - one per candle...

Thread them through the wicks retainers and squish shut to hold the wick with pliers....

 

Voila - forest of wicks ...

dip each one in some melted wax to prime it (i.e. soak the wax into the wick to ensure it burns evenly)

voila forest of dipped wicks ( ooh err missus!)

Then dip the retainer and stick it to the base of the tea light holder

This stops the wick from drifting off centre when you pour in the remaining hot wax.

Voila forest of prepared tea light holders... 

And slowly, but surely, a forest of finished and cooling candles develops....

So simple and such fun!

Rendering wax....

So having fed the bees I found myself left with a whole washing up bowl of beeswax that I'd had to cut,chip and scrape off the top of the frames....

Up close it is possible to really appreciate how beautiful bees wax really is.

Not many people know it is white when the bees exude it from the wax glands in their abdomen.  The bees then strengthen it by adding  propolis, and thousands of "dirty" yellow pollen covered feet walking over it contribute to the gradual yellowing....

 

On these "fresh from the hive pieces that have barely been used the yellow cell rims are really clear.

But however beautiful it is, it isn't much good to me in this state,for a start I need the washing up bowl back!  So its time to get rendering.

In short, that's melting and filtering to clean up the wax.  I got this method out of a copy of Beecraft and it is really quite simple,as long as you can lay your hands on an old slow cooker.  A good friend rescued mine from a charity shop...

Pop a bowl in the bottom and part fill the cooking pot with boiling water, prop a seive over the bowl and line with nappy liners....

 

Start loading the wax,pop the lid on and adjust the temperature so the water is gently simmering...

 

Keep checking,and feed in more wax as it melts through, you can see the scum being held back by the nappy liners...

 

 

Pretty soon a pot of lovely, clean melted wax is accumulating below all the scum...

In fact it seemed to be dripping through thick and fast so I commandeered some old plastic take away boxes to allow it to cool down to one side so I could keep working my way through the whole bowl full...

 

Gradually the bottom of the bowl began to appear....

The cooling wax however had a strange, gritty, shiny granular coating to it....

Which puzzled me for a while.  Then I realised it was probably the remains of the crystalised honey from inside the honey comb.  There was nothing else for it - it needed to be washed away,  (as honey is super concentrated sugar solution then re-diluting it returns it to a wash away fluidity) and after rinsing a second filtering.....

produced a much cleaner scummy residue.....

and a much cleaner bowl of melted bees wax...

which slowly cooled and solidified to a beautiful creamy coloured block of wax....

Though I must confess I was surprised, and not a little disappointed, that a whole washing up bowl of wax came to a mere 10.2g!!!

Maybe I'll just hold it, and stroke it, and breath in its lovely smell occasionally!

Beeswax treasure

I booked this day out a while ago.....certainly before Christmas so have been looking forward to it for quite some time.  I did think fate was trying to conspire against me getting there...temperatures of -4'c first thing in the morning combining with engineering work at Wimbledon and no Metropolitan line meant I had a VERY early start but 4 trains in two hours and I found myself facing the Harrow Arts Centre buildings...

 





I slithered across the very frosty car park and was relieved to find the track to the apiary, exactly where the instructions described...

I was met by a very warm welcome, coffee and biscuits and the smell of melting beeswax.  Within half an hour the room was full, we were divided into 4 groups and off we set to circulate our activities...

My red group started with moulded candles...

Under the watchful gaze of Jo it seemed as though we'd started with the hardest task of the day.  To chose a shape we wanted to make!!  I was very relieved when I saw a little skep with bees calling to me from in between all the moulds....

The theory of moulding candles is quite straight forward, particularly with these modern silicone moulds. Simple thread the wick through the hole in the mould, ensure the mould is closed tight (lots of elastic bands help here), Melt the wax and pour it into the mould...

 

 

Sadly I was a bit too eager beaver and so missed out on Jo's top tip of using a couple of pieces of twisted pasta to support the wick away from the cooling max. So I got a ridge in the base of my candle from the supporting cocktail stick as it cooled...

 





Thanks to the flow of conversation loaded with hints and tips to select the right sized wick for your candle I didn't notice how quickly the candle cooled and solidified, though I think the chilly day helped, soon enough a pretty little candle appeared...

and was finished off, with another top tip from Jo -trim and dip the wick in the melted wax to prep the wick for lighting.

A quick coffee break and we were off to workshop 2....soap and hand cream making with Judy...

Precision and pre-weighed ingredients were key to getting everything exactly right in this workshop..

to get the soap going....a couple of us were armed with goggle and gloves we took the caustic soda and distilled water outside to mix

 

Leaving the boys inside to weigh out the coconut oil, shea butter and emulsifying wax, gradually warming it to melt and mix it together

 

Then it was the turn of the wax mixture to spend a little time outside to cool so that wax and alkali mixtures were about the same temperature for mixing....

Many hands made light work to add the honey and lavender essential oil....

Before stirring and mixing with a stick mixer to encourage the emulsification process...

 

Then the yummy smelling "custard" was poured into a mould and wrapped in clingfilm and a towel to keep it warm and curing...

 

By comparison the hand cream was a doddle.....melt, whisk and pot!

 

I think it was fair to say we were already for some lunch and a hardy few ventured outside to view the apiary....

 

 

..and the odd high speed train en route to / from Euston....

Red team's afternoon started with rolled candles with Doreen, who showed us a range of her own candles and generously shared a wealth of tips....

Once again we had a tough choice to make....coloured or natural candles....

 

and taking full advantage of the more economical Langstroth un-wired natural foundation I had three candles in no time at all....

These held closed with the help of a bee pin, as the wax is rather too brittle and not tacky enough to stay together in chilly weather. You can also see in the picture above that practice makes perfect (another top Doreen tip) see how much flatter the base of the right hand smallest candle is in comparison the the first one I rolled on the left!

Workshop 4 was dipped candles and furniture polish with Bill.  Once again we were well informed with sensible advice and top tips...why spend loads of dosh on a posh bain maire when a tall pot and a metal spaghetti tin can do the job perfectly well (note to self; look for an aspraragus pot from a charity shop)... 

 

Simply melt your wax, prepare your wicks (dip and straighten) then master the art of dipping your wick! Its all in the timing to prevent unnecessary additional wrinkles and keeping an even coat of wax building up.  Once the candle has reached the desired size simply hang it up to dry properly....

Meanwhile melt some more wax, mix it carefully with turpentine, a gentle whisk and pour into pots. Who knew furniture polish could be so simple...

 

Or indeed smell so good setting in the late afternoon sunshine in front of some more moulded candles...

 

All too soon The day was done.  There was just time for Bill to take a quick photo of everyone with hands full of beeswax goodies...

before I scurried off to reverse my 4 train journey home.  

I had a great day, I learnt loads and have a wonderful treasure trove of beeswax goodies to keep me smiling for quite a while to come.  I understand there is already a waiting list developing for people to join the next class, likely to take place in July, I can wholeheartedly recommend it as a great day out, sign up here soon 

Bill emailed us all later saying,

"Just to thank you for coming on the workshop today, a group photo is attached. We really enjoyed running the day and hope it'll inspire you to make more products from the beeswax you produce. If you have a local Honey show, please consider entering the wax/candle classes, maybe even have a go at the National! "

Be careful what you wish for Bill -I might just be tempted to!!