Hi!
My mom just gave me some beeswax and honey from her hive of bees. I'd like to try using it for a batch of CP soap.
Does anyone know what I need to do to prepare the wax for soapmaking?
Any recipe ideas are also appreciated!
Thank you for any advice,
Becky
Judging from the picture, the honey is ready to be added to your soap, but the beeswax will need to be rendered. The method I use to render beeswax straight from the hive (once the honey has been extracted) is to fill a pot about half way with water, and fill the rest with beeswax, leaving enough room at the top to ensure that the mixture doesn't boil over. I heat the pot over an element (stove or BBQ) on low heat until the wax is completely melted, stirring as it melts, then pour the mixture into disposable containers like empty, clean yogurt containers. Note that the pot you use, anything you use to stir the wax mixture, and the containers you pour the wax into will be ruined for any other purpose, as it's next to impossible to remove all traces of wax from them. Once the wax has cooled and hardened, the water will have separated and can be poured off - it will likely be a dark brown from honey residue and any contaminants. The bottom layer of wax will contain a crumbly mixture of pollen, bee parts / cocoons, etc. that can be scraped off with a knife. At this point, you can use the remaining wax, or render the wax further. I usually repeat the whole process 2 - 3 times, pouring the mixture through cheesecloth on the final rendering, to make sure that I end up with very clean beeswax. There will still be the odd bit of pollen in the wax (which I don't mind) unless it's very finely filtered.
As for recipes, you can just add beeswax or honey to your regular recipe. The beeswax will accelerate trace, so I leave it out if I need more time for swirls or anything involving several colours. I add beeswax at 1% of the total oils, and 1 tsp. honey per pound of oil. You can go a bit higher with both, but at these usage rates I don't have problems with the beeswax inhibiting lather or the honey causing overhearing.
I melt the beeswax with my other hard oils and then combine them with the liquid oils in my recipe, which brings down the high temperature needed to melt the beeswax. (If you pour melted beeswax into your soap batter on its own, it often hardens up and leaves you with hard bits of wax in your soap). I combine honey with some warmed oil or liquid from my recipe, making sure that the honey is fully incorporated, and add it in at trace.
Beeswax is notoriously tricky to work with in soap, so if you find that it's more trouble than it's worth, you can always use the beeswax in candles, salves or lip balm!
