Candle making at Chandler’s Sandhill Honey begins after extraction. After checking with Google, we learned that it takes 7, 8, or 9 pounds of honey to produce one pound of beeswax, depending on which website you read. It is not an exact science.
- Beeswax from cappings (the thin layer of wax used to cover the full cells of honey) are separated during the honey extraction process and placed into 55 gallon barrels.
- The beeswax is heated and the debris (bee wings, etc.) floats to the top. This floating debris is removed and the hot wax is dumped into plastic dishpans making 11 pounds of beeswax. 55 gallons of beeswax equals about 4 dishpans.
- A dishpan of beeswax is then melted a second time in a big roaster pan, strained again through cheesecloth for the clean creamy pale yellow beeswax used to make candles or into 1 molds for later use.
The wicks we use are made of 100% cotton. Some candle wicks have a core of lead (which is hazardous), but not ours.
AN INTERESTING FACTOID TO CONSIDER: National Institute of Safety & Health has established Recommended Exposures Levels (RELs) for Paraffin wax fumes. Why was this done? Paraffin is a petroleum-based product. Although research indicates that paraffin candles don’t reach the RELs in an 8 hour test (even in church sanctuaries), consider this: NIOSH has not set exposure limits for beeswax fumes. Fumes from candles made of beeswax are safer than those made of paraffin.