Beeswax Candles

Once the honey jars are filled, the empty comb frames are returned to the beehive, so they can be reused to store more honey.  The cut off cappings are loaded into a top feeder and placed above the top hive box for the bees to clean off the residual honey.  Then we take the capping wax and refine it for candles.

Prepping the wax for candle making is a lot of work - the wax has to be melted down to separate out any residual larvae 'shells' (the darker protein casings left behind after bees hatch) and other residue. If the residue is left in the wax, the candle wicks get clogged up and don't burn well, as well as the residue giving off an unpleasant odor when burned (think of burnt strands of hair - yuck).  

The historic bee skep candle mold is my favorite. Its more work than the standard votive molds, which cast 8 candles at a time. The skep mold only forms 3, so the whole process takes much longer and takes more patience to thread the wick through and center it during the pouring and cooling process. But its worth it! 

Honey Harvest

tassajara tales

R E L A X - I'm not giving up meat. I am, however, trying out several vegetarian recipes from the Tassajara Cookbook in preparation for the week long visit of my grew-up-vegetarian mother, who now eats meat, but not much.

This is the Sesame Marinade for firm tofu that I'm testing. The only bit from my garden is the scallions, but that's enough to qualify it for the blog, right? Right. This is MY universe, people! [wink]

Anyway, these tofu triangles will marinade overnight, then I'll bake them and pack them for a road trip north to Sebastepol, where we're picking up 2 boxes of bees for the backyard hives.*


*Last years hive collapsed, reasons unknown. The new batch of bees is 'survivor stock' so we'll see how this season goes. Let's hope for lots of honey!

ceanotheus cache

The backyard ceanotheus is in full bloom, and the feral hive living in our eaves is taking full advantage.

bee maintenance

Upkeep update - it was time to remove the Queen's transport box and respace out the frames, to ensure proper 'bee space' that keeps the comb-making in line. Bees. I tell you, ya gotta keep on 'em. Worse than teenagers. [wink]



1. patient keeper, 2. prying up a frame, 3. busy bees

backyard bee bonanza begins!

And the adventure begins! After buying and prepping the hive (soy sealant, with no harmful VOCs) and lots of back-breaking work by Scott to prep the platform area in the yard, the bees arrived! We had a limited window in which to get them transferred from the shipping box to the hive, as a high wind advisory storm was brewing. The weather may have helped, actually, because the drizzly and chilly air probably dissuaded the agitated bees from getting too aggressive towards the guy whacking them outta their comfortably boxed cluster.



1. Box O'Bees, 2. LOTS of bees, 3. no paper OR plastic, 4. uncorking the bees