# How much wax is in a barrel of cappings?



## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

we figure 100-120 a drum we do pack them a little, not much though.


----------



## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I usually average a pound of wax for about 54 pounds of extracted honey if using a Cowen uncapper. If you are including lid scrapings that may skew it a bit. When we ran the Cowen spinner, a well packed drum of wax represented about 14 drums (around 9,000 lbs.) of honey which works out to around 160 lbs. Drums out of a C&B tend to run a little "richer". Methinks you should find someone else to render your cappings.


----------



## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

I my small scale operation running a lot of eight frame spacing and with some cut comb waste, I get up to 2% weight in wax to that of honey weight. Jim's figure of 160/9000 comes to 1.77%, close to my 2%. If I figured in the solar melter honey weight I would start to get down near the 1.8%.


----------



## xroads (Apr 9, 2013)

ok you got me thinking.

What do you do with it when you get it back, and how does it come?
What is the market/price for rendered wax?


----------



## Brian Suchan (Apr 6, 2005)

100lbs wax per drum of cappings give or take, and 1 drum of cappings for 10-12 drum of honey. What did he charge to render your cappings???


----------



## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

Looking back at some of my old invoices I get about 110 per drum. Usually I get about 1 drum of cappings for every 15 drums of honey. This year about 1 drum of wax for every 30 drums of honey. Pulled often and early this year. Sure made extracting easy. Jim's right, time to find someone else to render your wax.


----------



## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Jodie, I just melted off a barrel, which was heavier with honey as it was our end of season wax clean up barrel. I tapped off 85 lbs of wax, 1/3 of a barrel melter honey and a whack of slub gum. If I include the wax that is left in the slum gum and the wax cap on the melter honey, I probably would see 100 lbs from that barrel.


----------



## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

We pack our barrels, but we usually get 150 pounds of rendered wax per barrel.


----------



## JodieToadie (Dec 26, 2013)

Thank you for all the input. Looks like I got took. Next question, what should I use to render wax? Bottling tank? The Finlay wax melter looks pretty similar but is double the cost. I don't have too many alternatives to the guy who rendered my wax last year.


----------



## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

For just a few barrels. I would just use your bottling tank. Just change your dripless value with a ball value. 
Dad melted 100+ barrels of capping last year and they varied from 98-157 per barrel depending who was loading them. 
Jim Lion knows how to pack a barrel.:thumbsup:


----------

