I love honeybees. I’m a future bee keeper and I can’t wait to help bees make honey and beeswax. Until I can take care of honeybees I’ll stick to enjoying local honey and making candles from beeswax.
Beeswax has been around for ages and has several uses from cosmetics, woodworking and candles! It took two million flowers for the honeybees to pollinate to produce my one pound of beeswax in the picture below. Beeswax candles burn brighter and cleaner compared to any other candle. Beeswax candles will clean the air in your hive (couldn’t help myself!) you name it beeswax will clean it, mold and pollen to name a few.
A few things before we get started. Beeswax burns hotter than other waxes, adding coconut oil will cool the wax down so your glass won’t break. I’ve bought beeswax candles many times and wondered why the glass would break. Now I know! What you’ll need:
+ 1 pound Organic Bees Wax
+Metal Candle Wick Sustainer Tabs
+Braided Wick
+Quilted Jars, or
+ Fortjust IKEA Tealight Holder
+ 1 cup Coconut Oil
In a double broiler melt wax (wax should bee in the nesting pot) over simmering water. While your wax is melting cut and tie a wick to a pen or pencil for each jar. After the beeswax is melted add one cup of coconut oil and stir it well. Dip the end of your wick in the beeswax and adhere it to the bottom of your jar; this helps to keep the wick in place. Pour beeswax into each jar.
I was surprised how easy this project was. I blocked out two hours, but it only took forty-five minutes. Homemade beeswax candles would make a sweet gift! Happy nesting!
These are lovely! I hope you can keep bees soon, it’s really rewarding. In the meantime have you considered an observation hive? It’s minimum care, you get to see the workings and it’s a GREAT conversation piece.
Hi there! Thanks for the idea, although I think my neighbors wouldn’t like it if I had an observation hive in our loft! Do you have an observation hive?!
As lovely as they are, they look a bit lumpy and uneven – is that due to coconut oil being added?
If so, could the problem be eliminated if the coconut oil was added at a certain temperature?
I really like the safety aspect of adding CO to beeswax, but I have fussy customers who tend to choose aesthetics over everything else.
Hi there! I’m not sure how that would turn out, if you try it let me know!
*If you omit the coconut oil the candle will become too hot and shatter the glass it is in. So for safety reasons I would add coconut oil to cool it down.
My dad was a beekeeper up until a few years ago, and growing up Moravian we helped with making candles for the Christmas Eve Lovefeast and Candlelight services. We could not make all the candles, it was a rather large undertaking for the number we did make.
What I wanted to comment to was that we used beef lard to achieve a softer, more pliable, easier to release from molds wax. The molds were tin, so reducing melt point was not a concern, it is interesting that coconut oil has that ability. I use it as a quality dietary saturated fat.
Thanks for your comment—that’s so interesting! Did the beef lard alter the smell of the beeswax candle?
You can smell the tallow/lard lightly, it is actually tallow, which I believe is simply not as clarified as lard.
If you have been to the Old Salem Candle Tea it is basically a similar composition to what they use. The wax is no longer hard and brittle.