Andy and I have this great thing. It’s a solar wax melter. If you put a frame of honeybee comb inside it gets melted by the sun.
  Here are a couple of images of Andy placing comb in the melter and closing the lid. (For those of you who don’t know Andy, he’s my husband and partner in beekeeping.) The metal tray on which the combs are resting slants down toward the front of the melter. The loaf pan in the front of the melter catches the wax and debris after it melts and slides down the tray.
 The wax that emerges from the solar wax melter is chock-full of debris (honey, bee parts, propolis, the papery linings of honeybee brood cells) and must be filtered before it can be used to make encaustic paint. Second and third meltings takes place in the house on the stove. Here are some pictures of Andy melting and and pouring wax through multiple layers of nylon mesh.
 After three filterings the beeswax is ready to be made into candles or poured into one ounce bars. Beeswax comes in a variety of grades and colors from lemon yellow to golden brown. I use only cappings wax (the clearest lightest wax used to seal honey in the comb) to make encaustic medium. The wax you see here is medium yellow in color and will be used to make beautiful, honey scented candles which we’ll sell at our booth at the Boulder County Farmers’ Market this fall.
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