Bob Binney walks through Blue Ridge Honey Company's beeswax production: uncapping frames, spinning out wax with a Cook & Beals separator, melting it in a large tank, and filtering through nylon before pouring into blocks. The company processes several pallets of its own wax plus about 10,000 pounds bought from other beekeepers each year, producing bright yellow beeswax with low odor that burns without soot.
This beautiful beeswax here was created by Bob Binney. Take a look at this stack here. In this video, we're going to find out exactly how Bob produces this from all of his beehives. This is some of the most amazing wax I've ever seen. So Bob, today you're going to tell me all about how you make your amazing beeswax. Is that okay?
That's fine.
So go on, start from the very beginning. You've got your beehives, you've got wax in the beehives. How do you make this amazing wax?
Well, this is primarily cappings wax, so it's just simply when we uncap the combs, we have all of that wax.
Okay, so let's go and have a look at one of these bees. Go ahead.
We have a wax spinner, it's made by Cook and Beals in Nebraska, and they call it a spin-float wax separator. It has a basket in there that the centrifugal force pulls all the honey out of the cappings, and then you have something that looks a little bit like cornflakes or something, and then we put that in a big— we have a large rectangle wax melter that we melt it all down in, and then we pour it into these blocks. It's as simple as that.
So you've got the frames, and do you uncap them with like a machine?
Yeah, we have an automated uncapping system. It has vibrating knives and the frame goes down between there.
Yeah.
And the cappings fall down into like a trough that has an auger on it, and the auger pushes them into the wax float, the spin float separator.
Yeah.
And actually everything in our process goes through that machine. Even our extractor goes through there, 'cause occasionally you'll get a little bit of wax in your extractor too.
Okay.
So all of that goes through that machine and the wax is separated from the honey.
It's so nice. It's so clearly such a good grade of wax, isn't it? Like, I love that shine on the edge.
Well, it's just put in a plastic container. That's all it is. It's just a smooth surface.
But you just use the best wax, so just cappings. It's so nice and yellow. Do you keep the temperature low or?
Well, we do. We don't heat it any more than we have to. Also, we run it through a A filter, which is something you would see in a restaurant. You know how they filter grease or filter oil? Like when they cook with oil, they'll filter it through a filter. We use that same filter for filtering our wax.
Like a metal filter or like a—
Well, no, it's even finer than a metal filter. It's in a, it's in a metal carrier basket, but it's like a very, very fine nylon basket, and then wax goes through that and it gets all the fine Objectionable debris. You don't want any dead bee parts or any— yeah. You wouldn't call this microfiltered?
No.
Now, some wax is pushed through a filter that's so fine you can't even see daylight through it.
No, you don't want that.
And we don't do that.
And you can smell— I love it. You see some of the wax, and I see it where it's like garish yellow, and you smell it, and it's just not very nice. Go on, how much wax do you produce? How much wax do you produce each year?
Well, we produce— well, you're looking at 2 situations here. Not only do we produce many pounds of wax, but we buy it from friends. I can't produce enough to meet our market. So how many pounds we produce, I'm not real sure. Several pallets like this.
There's a lot of wax there, isn't there?
And then we buy a lot. Gosh, we probably buy 10,000 pounds from friends of mine every year.
That much free sniffs for everyone as well?
Free sniffs, that's right.
That's the hope of selling it.
It smells great. And you know, when you burn beeswax candles, the smell is just wonderful.
I really like it.
And it's really superior to a paraffin wax candle. It doesn't put off the soot. In fact, they even go so far as to say that burning beeswax candles can be a healthy thing. Okay, it changes the ions in the air and it helps clear up lung problems and stuff.
So it's a lovely natural product. And I've been meaning to do this video for ages because you came here a couple of years ago, we saw all of this wax, and I've seen your videos, I see how you do it. I just thought we could like put it all together, bring it and show people how to make this wax. So if you want the best wax in America, best wax in America, Blue Ridge Honey Company, Bob Binney, the living legend. Bob, I'll leave it there. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
