Solar beeswax extractor

Until recently, I’ve been somewhat skeptical of solar beeswax extractors as a viable method of melting and refining beeswax. I had previously built and tested a small solar extractor based on plans I found on the Internet and the results were good, but not great. Although the extractor worked, I still wasn’t convinced that the solar method was any more effective than any other method. Many plans for building solar wax extractor that I found online seemed to be either needlessly complex, extremely fragile, or including design features of untested efficacy.  Other methods of wax extraction, such as placing the wax comb in a cloth bag and boiling them together in a pot of water, seemed effective, faster, and far simpler.

A Rockwood wax press from the early 1900's  This somewhat complex wax extractor is only one of several types of non-solar extractors that I read about during historical research.

With all the conflicting information available on the Internet, I decided it would be best to conduct more factual research on the matter before pursuing any specific form of wax melting.  During research I decided to focus on historical literature rather than recently written documents.  One hundred years ago beeswax was more critical to many industrial products than it is now with our more advanced knowledge of chemistry.  In my opinion it would be better to use information recorded at a time when the demand for and use of beeswax was at its peak and methods for extraction and handling most refined.

Before I proceed any further regarding methods of wax extraction, I feel I should explain why it is necessary in the first place.  After all, if wax comb is made from wax, then what are you really extracting the wax from?  Why not just melt it? To answer this question I must also explain how honeybees produce and use the wax comb.

A photograph of honeybees in the process of building new wax comb.

The wax used by honeybees to make wax comb comes from tiny glands on the abdomens of worker bees in the form of minuscule white flakes.  Thousands of bees work together to produce these flakes which are collected by the bees and molded into comb.  This comb, when brand new, is pure white beeswax and so soft it could simply be mashed into a ball of pure wax without the need for extraction.  However, as the comb is used for either storing food or raising young bees (called brood) it becomes less pure.  With food storage the comb may darken somewhat, but it largely remain free of impurities.  In the case of comb used for raising brood (called brood comb) the outcome is much different.  Each generation of bees leaves behind actual cocoons in each comb cell which become embedded in the wax.  It is because of these impurities that the wax must be extracted rather than just melted down.  After wax extraction is completed these leftover impurities are collectively referred to as "slumgum."  Why it's called that is a mystery to me, but I do know that the term was used in beekeeping literature at least as far back as the late 1800's. 

Graphic of a solar wax extractor included in the 1908 book Wax Craft.

Of the numerous documents I examined, two appeared to be the most informative with regards to beeswax and wax extraction.  The first document is a small book printed in 1908 by T. W. Cowan entitled Wax Craft: All About Beeswax. This book provides extensive information on the history, production, chemistry, extraction, and commercial uses of beeswax.  The second and more immediately useful document, also published in 1908, is an article entitled "Extraction of Beeswax" by F. C. Alford.  This article contains the results of tests run at the Agriculture Experiment Station of the Colorado Agricultural College on various techniques used to extract and refine beeswax from honeybee comb.


I learned many things from these two sources of information, but I will only relay a few of them here.  First, I learned that simply boiling the wax comb in a cloth bag is not recommended as this method may overheat the wax and, consequently, damage it.  Second, most of the effective methods of wax extraction that were used in the early 1900's involve fairly complex mechanical apparatuses that are no longer available today.  In fact the only method considered effective back then that is achievable today is solar wax extraction. Regarding the effectiveness of solar wax extractors I will quote the following from Alford's final summary:

From the results of these experiments and my own experience in handling bees and rendering wax I believe that it is best for the average beekeeper to have a large solar wax extractor... ...and the slumgum [should be] stored in barrels until the beekeeper has time to treat it with dilute sulphuric acid and press under water.  

I'm not sure I'll ever try using sulphuric acid and pressing under water, but I did decide to build a solar wax extractor.  The following images illustrate my extractor and it's first test use.

A cross section of the solar wax extractor.  The aluminum pan was made from a sheet of aluminum flashing bent into shape and painted with matte black Rustoleum high temperature paint.

The completed extractor loaded with various pieces of wax I had accumulated.

The wax quickly melted, passed through the wire mesh, ran down the aluminum pan, and dripped into the collection container below. 

In the evening of the same day I removed the collection container to find some very high quality wax.  Any impurities that made it into the refined wax appeared to have sunken to the bottom of the block of refined wax and will be scraped off later.  The dark pieces of slumgum are visible in the extractor. 

Trifolium arvense is one of the major plant flowers currently attracting the honeybees on our ranch.  This photograph was taken in a five acre section of pasture not currently being grazed by the bison.  While taking this picture I could hear the buzzing of hundreds of honeybees moving from flower to flower.