In this day and age when the government, industry and environmentalists are calling for “Green Products” – they seem to forget there was a time when all products were Green. That time was not that long ago. If you are 59 years old (as I am) or have access to grandparents or Great-grandparents ask them what they did to live.
My father said as a boy they used horse manure, cow manure and chicken litter as fertilizer and picked the bugs off of garden plants by hand and dropped them in a coffee can of kerosene to kill them. Do the words “Organic Gardening” come to mind? The reason for this was they did not have money for commercial products that did the same job.
Travel was either by horse or walking – one provided the fertilizer and the other the health benefits that saw most of my Great-grandparents live to reach over 90 years of age. Heat was from wood and it was they who cut, split, stored the wood and kept the fires burning. Meat came from farm raised animals fed by some of the same farm raised crops they ate. Soap you made from animal fat and lye from the wood ashes left over from the heating and cooking fires. Medicine for the most part came from the wild plants that grew around the home and their use was handed down by word of mouth. Sweeteners came from fruit, molasses and honey. Before electricity – Water came from a well or spring and light came from oil lamps and candles. Have you seen anything yet that would not qualify as a “Green Product”?
I wish to talk about “Green Products” you can still make and use today that will have the virtues of the products of my Great-grandparents day. You will control the factory that makes the products and its quality. The factory is called a honeybee hive. In my Great-grandparents day either a bee tree was found or a swarm of honeybees was captured and put in a nail keg (called a bee gum) or a home made wooden box to be the source of the hive products. Today there are wooden hives that allow for the products to be removed without destroying the hive or the bees.
The original method meant the bee tree was cut down at night (the days before smokers, bee suits and veils that cost money) or the bee box – nail keg open at night because honey bees will not fly after sunset unless it is to a light near the hive. (Usually they crawl at night in your shirt, pants etc. when you don’t pay attention) The part of the hive with the honeybee brood in it was reinstalled in a bee box – nail keg and the remaining bees and queen were eager to go into the container to save the brood. The comb with the honey was brushed free of bees and put in a big pan or pans to take back home where the process of storing the honey could be completed. You could get 20 to 100 pounds of honey depending on how long the hive was there and the physical size of the hive. (I have seen hives in the side of old houses without insulation in the walls – plenty of room for growth.) Back home the honeycomb was cut to fit (usually a gallon or half gallon wide mouth jar) and the liquid honey at the bottom of the pans poured over the cut comb and the jar closed – job finished. (After removing any unwanted items, dead bees etc.)
If you wished to make candles – you would hand crush the wax comb forcing out as much of the honey as possible and this was usually put in a strainer to drain and be collected in a pan. The resulting liquid honey would have pollen, some propolis and honey from the hive. This was saved in a jar or poured over the cut comb honey. After the wax had finished draining it would then be washed in warm water to remove the remaining honey from the wax that did not drain out. This honey water could be used for baking, a sweet drink or for wine making. (In those days nothing was wasted that required work to get) The wax was put in a pot of water and heat added until the wax melted and then lightly stirred to let any trash settle out or rise to the surface where it could be removed. Let the water cool and remove the block of wax. Any dirt or trash left on the bottom of the wax can be scraped off with a knife. This process could be repeated as often as felt necessary to make a better final product. You now have the wax for your Beeswax candles.
Molds and Cotton wick could be purchased for the candle making process. Or you could use a clean metal container about 10 to 12 inches tall filled with bees wax which was usually heated in a make shift double boiler to melt the wax. This is your dipping container. The wick would then be dipped in the dipping container as many times as necessary to get the desired thickness of the candle. As the wax was used up more was added until you either ran out of wax or make enough candles. If you had a mold you would center your wick in the mold and pour the melted wax into it until full. The mold with the bees wax was then allowed to cool and the wax harden. Then the candle could be pulled out of the mold. Did I forget to mention you would have to grease the inside of the mold to be able to pull the candle out? A little trial and error was always present.
Honeybee Wax could be used to make salves, furniture polish, chewing gum, water-proofing paper (like wax paper) and as a lubricant for sticky drawers. The wax had soothing properties for a sore throat and would help open a stuffy nose when chewed. A salve could be made using lard and beeswax. The herb of choice would be heated in the lard and after a suitable time drained through a cloth filter to remove the solids. This lard extract would then be heated with wax added and melted until (with testing) you got the finished product to the desired hardness. This honeybee wax cost nothing but the time it took to process it into a product you had a need for and you knew what was in it.
Honey was the sweetener brought to you by Mother Nature’s insect herbalist. Honey poured over fresh mint and left for 6 weeks gives you a honey flavored peppermint patty taste. Medicinal honey was made the same way with the herb of choice used instead of the mint (which is good for digestion). Just think – no doctors, no prescriptions, no drug companies and no FDA just the results you want and the cost is your time. Honey has been used as a medicine before the Romans even dreamed of creating medicine.
How To Create Your Own “Green Factory”
To create your own “Green Factory” you first do the research by finding a local honeybee club or Beekeeper to help you get started. Most if not all states have a State Apiarist. Find the phone number and he or she can get you in touch with a local club. Everyone there will be more than willing to help you with information. Talk to 10 different Beekeepers and you will get 10 different ways to do the same thing and most likely all 10 will be right. This is a job where what works for one may not work for another. The reasons are varied because of the location of the hives, the race of the honeybees and your thoughts on the subject.
The equipment needed can be made by you, purchased from bee companies like “The Walter T. Kelly Company” and “Dadant & Sons” or a complete hive and equipment purchased from a retiring beekeeper. A good reference to have is “The Hive and The Honeybee” from Dadant & Sons. You can also go real basic and create your own Kenya hive. These are all decisions to be made by the President of your “Green Factory”.
A solar wax melter is the easiest way to convert honeybee comb into solid beeswax blocks for making your candles. A Pierce Thermostat Knife is a good way to cut the cappings off of the honeycomb so you can use an extractor to spin the honey out of the comb. This way you can put the comb back into the hive, still have wax cappings for your candles and liquid honey for storage and use. Here again it is decision time for the President of your “Green Factory”. How Do You want to run your “Green Factory”? The decision is yours.
About Me
My Wife and I started our website at http://Jamersonscrafts.com where we sell handrolled beeswax candles and other crafts we make. I also have a blog at http://naturalbeekeeping.blogspot.com where I give a running account of how I started in natural bee keeping, the results good and bad, what I do and how I do it.
I hope I have given anyone who would like to do this a starting point. Where you take it – is your Green Decision.
Best Wishes & Good Luck
Paul Jamerson
My wife and I started our home based business in 1992 because we love all things crafty. I have been a beekeeper since 1987 and have been interested in bee keeping since I was a boy helping my grandfather with his bees.
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