Solar Wax Melter

Recently I had a talk to John Klumpp and asked him his thoughts on cleaning native bee wax. He told me that he uses a solar wax melter to do the job. I had a look online and found a few different types, in fact I did not see two the same. So I decided to make my own. You may be wondering what does a solar wax melter do? Well as the name suggests it uses the suns rays to heat up wax and and separate it from honey pollen and other impurities.

Here is how I made mine…

The first thing I got was a tiny window out of a door. (If you are making one for honey bees it will need to be much larger.) I made a box to fit the size of the window frame.

Next I used an galvanized oil tray that I got from the shop to make an internal tray for the box. I marked it out and used aviation shears to cut it to the right size for the box. I allowed 30mm on the sides to be bent up and take the screws to hold the tray in place. I then bent the base up 60mm and drilled a hole for the wax to run down into a container.

I then screwed my tray in and glued up some splits in the timber. Note that the tray is fixed in place so that it is on the angle. In this way the wax will always run down the tray and out the hole.

Finally I put some silicone up the sides at the base of the tray and cleaned the glass and oiled the whole thing. I also put some weather seals around the whole window to trap the heat in and keep water out.