Hi Donald and All: 

I think that you are correct about propolis darkening wax melter honey.  I remember reading in the Hive and the Honeybee that care should be taken to not heat honey in the processing line with any wax present for this reason.

The other comments you made do not really apply to my wax melter which is a 300 gallon stainless steel water jacketed tank with no radiant heat and no internal water pipes.  The water jacket has pipes connected to a wood boiler and an electric element as well to supply that last temperature rise.  However, I notice that my melter honey is now much darker than it used to be when I used a maxant melter with a sloping bottom that continually drained off the melted honey/wax.  This is why I figured time factors in.

I looked up caramelization last night and investigated about 20 hits.  It seems that it is a very complex process involving several different chemical reaction, polymerization and is affected by enzymes.  The temperatures at which it occurs are different for different sugars:
sucrose  160 C
glucose   160 C
fructose  110 C

So this I think is a possible explanation about fondant:  the sugars used are sucrose and glucose which both have caramelization temperatures much higher than the fondant making temperatures.  But melter honey would have a very high percentage of fructose and since the melter is running just a little lower than the caramelization temperature of fructose I believe some is probably happening (my taste buds indicate it).   At the temperatures indicated above caramelization is supposed to proceed very quickly, but with such a complex reaction some probably happens at lower temperatures but more slowly.  Enzymes in the honey might also help to catalyze the breaking of hydrogen bonds which is apparently necessary.

Regards
Stan
 

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