Giving the Solar Wax Melter a Workout

I said some time ago, all I need is a sunny day.  Today, we finally got one, and I put our solar wax melter to good use.

Here is what it looked like when I started around 10:30 AM.  This is the comb from the extraction we did last weekend after it has been crushed, strained, and cleaned up by the bees.  I put it out in the melter, aimed it towards the sun, put about three-quarters of an inch of water in the receiving pan, shut it up and let it do its thing.   I checked back every fifteen minutes to see how it was getting along.

Fifteen minutes later.  Not a lot of difference, but I could see some melting here and there; the whole mass was slumping a bit.

More noticeable now is the brown at the bottom of the pan.  This was left from the last batch.  I was pretty sure there was a bit of wax left to extract from it, and the older dark comb actually helps filter the newer wax as it runs through it.

After half an hour, there was definitely a difference.  See how it's pulled away from the top, and the whole thing has become more compact.  By this point, it resembled a tray of rice crispy treats.

Forty-five minutes in.  Now we're really getting somewhere.Not only is the melting obvious around the edges, but you can see the melted wax starting to pour out of the bottom of the tray.

One hour, nearly half the original volume is melted down, and an appreciable accumulation in the receiving pan.

One hour, fifteen minutes, and we're almost all the way through.

It's worth noting here that the melter remained in the same position through the entire process.  I never had to turn it to follow the sun.

Here we get a better look at the melted wax coming out of the upper tray.  It drips, pours, and plops down into the receiving pan below.  The water I put in at the beginning helps keep the wax from getting stuck in the pan, making it much easier to remove than it would be without the water.  Don't ask me how I know this....

About an hour-and-a-half after we started, and we're pretty much all done.  Everything has melted, and there's just a bit more to run down into the receiving pan. Pretty neat, huh?

I love that we are able to this without using any energy other than that provided by that enormous nuclear furnace some ninety-three million  miles away.  Even though I was constantly watching this, it would have gone just as quickly, and just as well, without me anywhere near.  Melting wax on a stove comes with all kinds of warnings, since boiling over can cause the wax to ignite.  In a solar melter...not so much.

And here's the final product, the pan of wax fresh out of the melter.  As you can see, part of it is still liquid in this picture, but it solidified fairly quickly once I brought it inside.  This block of wax weighed out out just over one pound.  It still needs further refining, as there is still a bit of residual honey and a few impurities in it.   But this wax is well on it's way to becoming a lip balm or lotion bar for one of you.