# Wax separation from dark brood comb



## swarmcatcheruk (Dec 13, 2021)

We come across a lot of dark comb and usually end up storing it in the hope that we get a quiet period and have time to extract the wax from it. Unfortunately we usually we end up disposing of it because of wax moth infestation. 
So this year we had some time before Christmas to *try *to process it in the hope of making some candles (that's another story).
We purchased a Melliflow (https://www.abelo.co.uk/shop/uncapping-tables/uncapping-table-and-wax-melter-2-in-1-1000mm/) which is to help us separate the honey from the wax, initially at low temperature to get as much as we can without spoiling it by creating HMF. Then heating it further to separate more honey but with the risk of HMF toxicity (not sure what to use this for - could this be used for mead making? And then sufficiently enough to separate the wax. This third stage works fine on clean comb but not on the dark brood comb, the slumgum seems to hold onto the wax. 

So to solve this I *tried* using a thornes Kochstar Wax Melter which does help in separating the wax but what a faff. 
Its not really big enough to put much in a bag and submerge it successfully allowing the wax to rise and separate - this is more difficult to do than one would think, does anyone have a good solution to this? I have thought about making up a basket that we could put a bag of slumgum into and submerge it into the Wax melter, but the wax melter is small and for the amount of slum gum we have it would be very wasteful use of energy
Was wondering if I could make up a practical device to do it on a larger scale using an old hot water heater tank - anyone got thoughts on this, I did see a reference to a steam generator using a similar item recently any thoughts on how practical this would be would be good.

*Does a wax steamer get all the wax out of the comb or does the slumgum still have a lot of wax left in it?*

Having initially separated some wax this way we have found it till contains a lot of minor contaminants, requiring it to be melted and separated again - ideally we would like to find a long tube to allow the contaminants to settle as it seems that the resulting wax is cleaner if you have a taller rather than wider receptacle. Has any one got thoughts on what would be a good device that could be used for it - ideally stainless steel? Would something like an old Fire Extinguisher or air cylinder tank be suitable?

It was my understanding that metals other than stainless steel contaminate the wax causing it to darken - is this right or does this just apply to the tainting of honey? I see Thornes supply aluminium dipping tube so presumably no discolouring expected from wax in aluminium?

So far it seems a lot of hassle for not a lot of wax, but then it also seems very wasteful to not separate it out, so still trying to find a sensible efficient method for long-term use.


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## JB33 (Jul 27, 2021)

I bought a cheap stainless steel vegetable steamer for around $20.00. It basically consists of a large metal pot with a smaller metal pot that fits inside. The inner pot has a bunch of holes in it so you could use it to steam vegetables. I just filled the large pan with water, placed the perforated pan in, added wax, and steamed for an hour or so. As the steam heats the comb, the wax melts and falls into the large outer pan that contains the boiling water. I find that it does a pretty good job of removing wax from brood comb. However, some wax still remains in the resulting slumgum. I imagine you could devise a way to squeeze some of it out. Maybe using a potato masher to force some of the wax out and into the bottom pan. While I believe the steam method does remove more wax from brood comb, I have no data to confirm this. I also don't know if an hour is enough time to remove most of the wax or if it may be too long. I'll have to do some testing to figure out the point in which additional steaming only results in diminishing returns. Hope this helps!


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## Lee Bussy (May 28, 2021)

Kaymon Reynolds showed a gent in Hawaii upping his wax extraction with a reasonably simple setup:


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## JB33 (Jul 27, 2021)

Lee Bussy said:


> Kaymon Reynolds showed a gent in Hawaii upping his wax extraction with a reasonably simple setup:


I’ve heard of this method but didn’t really think it would work well. But after seeing the video I had to try it. I have a pot of slum gum boiling under a perforated double boiler and it’s working! Excited to see how much wax is extracted.


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## swarmcatcheruk (Dec 13, 2021)

joebee33 said:


> I’ve heard of this method but didn’t really think it would work well. But after seeing the video I had to try it. I have a pot of slum gum boiling under a perforated double boiler and it’s working! Excited to see how much wax is extracted.


Yes I saw this great video which is why I eventually went the route I did. 
I had sent an email to [email protected] to see if they were still making those tanks but disappointingly never got a reply back. I was unable to see anything similar on their website.
If I had been able to find that bit of kit in the UK or something similar at a reasonable cost I would probably have bought it.
But having just looked again I see this is actually what they call a bottling tank Maxant Industries | Beekeeping Equipment & Supplies - probably the MODEL 600-3 300# (25 gallons) ?

So in the meantime I'm using the Kochstar electric hot pot which only holds about 14 litres - 3.7 US gallons so not a lot of space (sadly 7 x smaller)
Been trying every which way - today I put a load of slumgum in a pillow case (which I have not yet tried using as a filter so hoping its not to tight a weave) and tried to keep that submerged - unsuccessfully - so going to try and make up a basket that I can put inside to hold everything down (it all wants to float). Waiting for it to cool to see whether the wax passed thru the weave.
I had previously tried holding it all down with a trivet wrapped in a filter cloth - it showed signs of success but way too much passed so not what I was looking for. 
Picked on a pillow as mesh bags were getting torn too easily.

In principal it all seems straightforward but doing it without spending a fortune is not so easy. 

So still trying to see how much wax we would get if it all works - so far its not been impressive quantities especially for all the time put into it.


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## swarmcatcheruk (Dec 13, 2021)

joebee33 said:


> I bought a cheap stainless steel vegetable steamer for around $20.00. It basically consists of a large metal pot with a smaller metal pot that fits inside. The inner pot has a bunch of holes in it so you could use it to steam vegetables. I just filled the large pan with water, placed the perforated pan in, added wax, and steamed for an hour or so. As the steam heats the comb, the wax melts and falls into the large outer pan that contains the boiling water. I find that it does a pretty good job of removing wax from brood comb. However, some wax still remains in the resulting slumgum. I imagine you could devise a way to squeeze some of it out. Maybe using a potato masher to force some of the wax out and into the bottom pan. While I believe the steam method does remove more wax from brood comb, I have no data to confirm this. I also don't know if an hour is enough time to remove most of the wax or if it may be too long. I'll have to do some testing to figure out the point in which additional steaming only results in diminishing returns. Hope this helps!


Thanks for confirming that - looking at various videos about it looks as if there is still a lot of wax left in the slumgum of dark brood after it has been steamed, you often see the comb structure holding together, was not sure that all the wax had been released, where as using the submerged method it appears all the wax is pushed out using heat, density, gravitational forces and time - as described in the video that Lee kindly put up.


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## A Novice (Sep 15, 2019)

I have used a solar wax melter and gotten pretty good results.
Lay the combs out and let them drain for a few hours. You won't get all of the wax, but you will get most of it.
This is not the right time of year for that, of course, and it goes slow if you have a lot of combs. The wax you get is pretty nice though.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

I made an active steam comb melter that gets out much more wax than a solar melter. Steam blows in from the top and bottom, the wax runs out a hole in the bottom. I doubt that I ever recover it's cost and the propane cost with wax produced. I later made a better steamer.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I have an old pressure cooker for a steam generator. I set a deep box on a solid bottom and line it with a large trash bag. I fold open the trash bag and I put a metal queen excluder on top of the bottom box. I stack boxes of old comb on top with one box a couple up having a one inch hole thru the front of the box and bring the trash bag up to cover as much of the stack as possible and tack it in place. I run a steam line thru the plastic and gasket it with rags. You can stack boxes further up and bring a trash bag down to keep the live steam in the stack. After a few hours up to temperature, a cake of pretty good wax forms on the water/condensed steam in the bottom box. The overhead is just my old junky equipment. I have piled scraps of comb on the queen excluder to steam but leaving the junk frames in boxess is a lot easier.


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## Steve in PA (Jan 26, 2015)

I built one similar to Frank's with our pressure cooker. As an experiment it worked. In actual time/effort/expense value it was dubious at best. Maybe for 100's of frames it was worth it but for dozens it was not.


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## Lee Bussy (May 28, 2021)

While steam is always good, I think the one such as in Kamen’s vid uses the properties of the density of water vs wax to help extract more of the wax.


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