# Processing large quantities of beeswax



## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Hi Fuzz,
just answered another question you had on another forum.
Place the buckets with wax in the freezer for a few hours and the wax will come out easily.
I purchased a wax melter from " Quality Beekeeping" in Brisbane and it works for me. Right now I'm using the melter to clean some old frames - easy.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

>My plan was to process it all via a solar wax melter, but I've found that, with the amount of beeswax I have, it'll simply take too many years to process it all this way.

Huh? I melt a five gallon bucket in a day for many days every season. Probably 30-50 buckets a year. Been doing that for 40 years.


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## TheFuzz (Apr 15, 2019)

Would it be better to freeze, or heat the bucket to get the wax out?

That's interesting odfrank. I made a DIY solar wax melter, maybe it's just too small or inefficient for it to work at a fast pace for me.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

My melters were built off plans from some college about 40+ years ago similar to the plans on Beesource. They easily fit 5 gallon plus of cappings. On good hot sunny days five gallons melt easily. In my area that is May into August, 90 degree heat waves being the best days. 

I overwinter about 20 buckets that get extracted after August that we fill one inch from the top. They have some granulated honey on the bottom and are very stuck. I take a wide plastic nursery container and place the bucket of capping upside down in it. I push down on bottom of the bucket to budge the granulated honey off the bottom. Then i pick up the bucket and drop it down hard into the nursery container. Usually the whole wad of contents breaks free from the container. I then cut it up with a small shovel and move it into the melter. Or maneuver the bucket with the now loose contents into the melter and chop it up in there.


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