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Subject:
From:
Wendy Ban <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Discussion of Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 22 Oct 1996 09:33:40 -0400
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Regarding the question on processing cappings: I use a
home-rigged hot water melting apparatus now, but it is more
work and not much preferable to the QUICK 'n EASY method I
used for many years (for a dozen or so hives).
 
1. I got a quantity of empty 3-lb. coffee cans and their plastic
lids from the towering stack of discards in the communal coffee
room at work.
 
2. As I extracted throughout the season, I placed well-drained
cappings and broken or old/defective comb in the cans, replaced the
plastic lids, and stored the cans.
 
3. At the end of the season I removed the lids, placed the cans in
a slow oven (my oven's lowest temp. setting -- "warm"), and let the
mass melt.  Stirring hastened the melting, though near the end of
the melt, the mass should be left unstirred. I turned off
the oven and let everything cool overnight.
 
4. The next day (in a kitchen pleasantly scented with the aroma of
honey and wax) I removed the contents. Cake of wax on top with
slubgum/goo adhering to bottom which can be cut off. Cooked but
not unpleasantly scorched honey at bottom which can be fine-filtered.
It's a bit tricky to get the wax cake out of the can, but subtle
rolling of the rim with palms of hands frees it, and it can be
nudged out over a receptacle to collect the honey.
 
I fed the honey back to the bees, sold it to a mead maker who likes
the caramel tones it gives mead, or traded it to a local Austrian
woman for her large quantities of traditional Lebkuchen christmas
cookies (cooked honey makes far superior Lebkuchen, she claims).
 
The wax isn't pristine filtered clean (some specks and occasional
small slum balls), but clean enough to sell to a foundation supplier.
I remelted and filtered it to dip candles. The only thing that
ever bothered me was wondering what effect, if any, the can metal
has on honey in terms of metal toxicity.  The flavor is unaffected,
and the mead/cookie makers were unconcerned.
 
Wendy Ban
8 hives, Columbus OH

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