>        I've been rendering some of my bees wax lately, and making
>candles, lip balm etc.  Some of the wax is nice and light colored while
>some is really fairly dark i.e. dirt colored. I use Hydrogen Peroxide to
>help purify and settle some of the contaminates.  This works well but
>doesn't really bleach it...like the color of cappings during a strong
>flow.  Does any one know of a good home remedy to bleach bees wax?
>
>                                Ann
 
In my first attempt to render cappings last year I used boiling water.
This left me with brown wax and a nearly imposible cleanup job.  The brown
wax also lost that wonderfull beeswax arroma.
 
This year I'm using a solar melter to render the cappings.   The cappings
were washed in cold water to remove the honey.  About 3/4ths of the
cappings broke up into individual wax scales which were separated from the
wash with a 1/6 inch nylon mesh. (1/4 inch mesh may be preferable)   The
non-cap wax including burr comb and chewed wax was left in larger pieces
that didn't pass through ther mesh.  I drained and air dried the scales and
loaded them in the top of the solar melter.  The sugars and contaminates
still attached to the wax carmelized and stuck in the top of the melter
while the clear wax flowed off.  The wax still has it's natural yellow
color and arroma.
 
 
        -- Dan Oetting <[log in to unmask]>