Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: dfizer on October 11, 2012, 08:07:53 pm

Title: Honey etc...
Post by: dfizer on October 11, 2012, 08:07:53 pm

I removed quite a bit of burr comb as well as cleaned up some frames that got damaged.  When i cleaned these up i begin by scraping all the drawn comb off the frames then I heated it to melt the wax. And seperate it from the honey.  Normally the melted wax makes its way to the top and the honey settles to the bottom - I have had no issue whatsoever in years past however this year when I heated the comb, wax, and honey, the wax went to the top and honey to the bottom however, this time there is a bunch of white residue that has settled on the bottom.  This is new to me and I'm curious what it is and if any of the rest of you have ever experienced this; if so how did you handle it? 
Please advise me as I'm not quite sure how to proceed.
Best regards.
David

Title: Re: Honey etc...
Post by: Hemlock on October 12, 2012, 12:22:18 am

Could it be Pollen?

Title: Re: Honey etc...
Post by: Vance G on October 12, 2012, 02:48:54 am

I haven't experienced this one, at least yet.  How hot did you get these cappings?  If the wax made a cake on top that means over 140 I think and the honey is only good for baking anyway or excellent for making dark beer.  If you put nothing suspicious in, i don't know what it is and hardly imagine it could be harmful.  Could you have scraped paint or plastic chips off? 

Title: Re: Honey etc...
Post by: AliciaH on October 12, 2012, 01:41:33 pm

I got that last year and didn't know what it was.  Check out this video:

Wax Part 4 - Propolis and Clean Wax processing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2Idl9pk28s#ws)

Hopefully the link will work.  It's Fat Bee Man in "Wax Part 4 - Propolis and Clean Wax processing".  See if what he's describing as propolis matches what you have.