Beeswax

Just recently I had a lady come into my booth at the market and offered me a box of beeswax!!
I have to tell you I was pretty excited!! I buy it for about 20.00 a pound at the health store so a whole box was a God send!!

When I picked it up I was shocked at how dirty and lumpy it was!! I had no idea and this was the first batch of virgin beeswax I had ever seen!!
You can see from the pictures what I mean but look how beautiful it is now!!!

I goggled it and discovered that you melt it in water...let it cool ..... the wax rises to the top and hardens and all the debris sinks to the bottom of the pot!!

Easy peasy right??? Wrong!!

The easy part was heating it to melting in the hot water....
I had no idea how hard it was to get out of the pot!! It was stuck!! The water on the bottom was sealed in by hardened beeswax!! It was like a vacuum.....!!
My DH and I poked at it with a fork, a sharp knife, we tried pounding it with a meat tenderizer , turned it upside and wacked the bottom....no luck!!! Now all the dirty water was back on the beeswax!! I was ready to toss my stockpot AND the beeswax out the door. Argh!!! Finally after much sweat and vein popping exertion we managed to loosen one side and it slid out!!
I must say it was beautiful....until I turned it over!!

There was still a lot of dirt and debris on the bottom so I cleaned the stock pot....beeswax is extremely difficult to get off of anything!!
NEVER.....I repeat....NEVER pour melted beeswax down your drain!!

So I broke the big slab of wax into pieces and threw them back into the pot a second time.
Once it was melted I poured it through a sieve lined with cheese cloth to get all the dirt out and then poured into individual molds.
I now have some really nice beeswax that I can use for my soap, lip balms and creams!!
Victory at last!!