The books / Wax and the Solar Melter / chapter 3 of 14
Cappings, the clean wax
All chapters
- Seven kilos of honey for one of wax
- Why drawn comb is never thrown away
- Cappings, the clean wax
- Old brood comb
- A kilo a year
- Never direct heat
- The double boiler
- The solar melter
- The steam melter
- Filtering and grades
- Rotating the brood comb
- What wax is worth
- Drawing comb costs stores
- What a kilo can become
Cappings are the thin wax lids bees seal over ripe honey, cut away at extraction, and they are the best wax you will ever render. Fresh cappings have never held brood, so they carry almost none of the cocoon silk, propolis, and pollen residue that darkens older comb: pale yellow to white, and ninety to ninety-five percent of their dry weight comes back as clean, sellable wax.
That purity is why cappings command the best price of anything you render, and why cosmetics and candle makers ask for it by name rather than settling for whatever block a beekeeper has on hand.