Crafts

Learn More
Home Bee Facts Activities Record Keeping Honey Harvest More Sites Crafts Queen Rearing Observation Hives Recipes Wax Moths Rescuing a Colony Top Bar Hives	This bee is on a landing board. This bee is on newly made honey comb.	Working With Beeswax The sheets of colored beeswax the children used are not the same as the ones they use for foundation in the frames in their beehives. The colored beeswax is not pure. It does have some paraffin in it. Pure beeswax burns cleaner and longer. Candle making and hand lotion bar making are good ways to make products to sell along with the honey your bees will produce. In the December 2005 meeting Megan gave a talk and demonstrated how to make lip balm using beeswax. When melting beeswax always use a double boiler. Never put the pan of wax over direct heat.	This bee is on a block of pure beeswax saved from cappings. When making hand lotions, lip balms and lip creams, use this lovely wax. Its lovely smell will add value to your product.

Making Things With Beeswax
Liberty 4-H Beekeepers made beeswax candles at their December 2004 Meeting . They used sheets of colored beeswax. These are available at many craft stores and in beekeepers' supply catalogs.	Hannah selected blue and purple sheets of beeswax to make her first candles. Griffin preferred to work with black, red, and blue to make some beautiful candles. Jessie liked the bright red beeswax.
You can see by the children's finished products they used their imaginations to create a variety of candles.	Sean, Maggie and Liam show off their candles. Kasey had fun making a snowman on one candle, holly on another and polka dots on the last one.
		Kaitlyn is demonstrating the way to place the wick on the beeswax. She pressed it firmly onto the edge of the wax. Next she will roll the wax tightly around the wick. The top of the wick is 1/4" above the candle. Before rolling the wax, she softened it with a hair dryer so that it was easier to work with. Hannah shows how she layered pink over purple to make a very attractive candle. The only tools she used were a straight edge ruler, a sharp knife, and the hair dryer. A pizza cutter works very well, too we discovered.
	Beeswax is made from glands on the underside of a young bee's abdomen.	Bees must eat 8.4 pounds of honey to make one pound of beeswax.	Bees must go to over 2 million flowers to produce one pound of honey.
Megan did a great job preparing a talk and teaching the other 4-H beekeepers the art of making lip balms and creams. She now prefers to use olive oil in these recipes rather than the almond or other oils she found in her research.

Learn More
Home	Bee Facts	Activities	Record Keeping	Honey Harvest	More Sites	Crafts	Queen Rearing	Observation Hives	Recipes	Wax Moths	Rescuing a Colony	Top Bar Hives