What now?

Looks a bit like breakfast cereal but it's not.



I have a friend who keeps bee hives. Lots and lots of hives actually. He sells the delicious honey. I also buy beeswax from him. Over the weekend he gave me a big bag, like probably ten pounds or more, of wax caps. When beekeepers extract the honey, they cut off the wax caps from each honeycomb cell with an uncapping knife or machine. Its color varies from nearly white to brownish, but most often a shade of yellow, depending on purity and the type of flowers gathered by the bees. Impurities accumulate in the wax -- like pollen, bee parts and dirt. Due to the impurities, the wax has to be rendered before further use.

So, in a really old metal pot that I don't care a hoot about (thank goodness my apiarist friend told me this very important part!), I melted the wax in water and let it boil a few minutes. Such a gloriously sweet aroma filled my house. Now instead of granola it looks like soup.



After melting and boiling I let the pot sit and cool for about 24 hours. The wax floats to the top and hardens. Those bee parts and other impurities that I talked about earlier all are heavier and therefore settled underneath the wax. That lovely layer is called slumgum. Seriously. That is the term for it. Kinda looks like browned ground beef.



I cut all the slumgum off and am left with this. I'm debating cleaning it again to see if I can get every last bit of the impurities out.



My does it smell good.



Now I understand why beeswax is so expensive.

-dana

P.S. I imagine some of you will ask what I will do with the beeswax. Sometimes I make lip balms and different balms for the skin. Plus, I may try adding it to some soap. Of course, after all that hard work, I may just set it in a pretty dish and admire it. And smell it 'cause have I mentioned how lovely it smells?