Clustering

So far our bees are surviving another winter! They are amazingly able to keep their hive at a constant temperature (even when the air outside is below freezing) by clustering together to stay warm. The warmer the air (above 45 degrees F) the more spread out the cluster will be, the colder the temperature ( below 45 degrees F) the more the bees contract.

 

Favorite Recipes

Each of our products were developed after a few days of experimenting. During this time we created many different recipes and discovered others that have become our favorites. One of our favorites is Watkins Vanilla Honey Butter.

 Vanilla Honey Butter

1/2 cup butter or margarine (we prefer real butter)

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1/4 cup honey

1 tsp. Watkins Pure Vanilla Extract

Whip butter and powdered sugar together until smooth; stir in honey and vanilla. Enjoy! (Makes 3/4 cup)

We also have a recipe for beeswax hand lotion, and homemade elderberry syrup available at our website;  www.littledrippers.com 

 

Homemade Lotions and Balms

We (www.littledrippers.com) get asked frequently how to modify a lotion or balm recipe to adjust the consistency.  We have found that the simplest way to make a lotion or balm either stiffer (less greasy) or softer is simply by adding or reducing the portion of hard wax (we only use pure beeswax). 

Start with twenty to twenty-five percent less wax than called for in a given recipe.  The wax can always be added to stiffen the product but once you add too much you may as well start over.  Let your product cool to room temperature and try it out.  If it is too soft then melt it all down again and add another ounce or half ounce of wax and test it again. 

We have been able to make significant changes in the texture/consistency of our lotions and balms by this simple procedure without waisting any product. 

 

Really Raw Honey

Lately there has been a lot of noise about Really Raw Honey.  There are all sorts of claims out there about how this type of honey contains more of what the bees intend to provide health wise.  Additionally, many seem to think this is some new type of product that has just been created.  Let’s talk about it.

What is Really Raw Honey?  It is honey that has been extracted without using any heat of any sort and then isn’t strained.  How is this different than other honey?  Most grocery store honey is extracted (removed from the honey comb) and then quickly heated, then pressure strained and filtered to remove all bits of wax, propolis, and pollen.  This helps extend its saleable shelf life (length of time before crystallization).  Your typical honey stand honey has been extracted but perhaps not heated and filtered (only strained).  This removes most of the wax and large pieces of propolis and pollen.  Because it hasn’t been heated and filtered it tends to crystallize much quicker than what you get in a grocery store. 

Really Raw Honey, on the other hand, still contains all the wax chunks, propolis chunks, and pollen bits that typically get strained out.  This causes the honey to crystallize almost immediately and is basically a chunky, crunchy, crystallized honey.  Something that would have been nearly impossible to sale five years ago. 

Our opinion on this type of honey is its fine but nothing special or more valuable than your typical honey stand producer’s honey.  Chunk honey, or comb honey, has always been around and that is the best, most natural, way to eat honey.  It has never been uncapped and is still in the container the bees made.  Beeswax and propolis aren’t consumed by the bees.  These are basically construction materials and don’t belong in your honey.  Sure they don’t hurt anything but to claim this honey is more in line with what the bees intended is taking some extreme liberties in consumer ignorance.

If you have an opinion share it.

 

Working With Beeswax

Beeswax is an incredible substance and one that is a pleasure to use.  It’s relatively low melting point of 62-6 degrees Celsius (143-151 Fahrenheit) makes it easy to liquefy and with a flash-point well above the melting point (254-274 degrees Celsius – 490-525 degrees Fahrenheit) there is a plenty large margin of error.  The biggest problem that we have found is getting it clean enough to really make a beautiful candle, lotion, or soap. 

Even the so called clean, filtered beeswax just doesn’t make that beautiful, golden yellow with its slight iridescence that makes beeswax so attractive.  So, how then does a simple hobbyist make a premier beeswax product without the thousands of dollars of equipment to really purify the wax?  The easiest way is to find a fine quality wax provider and purchase it from them. An easier, and far less expensive, way is also available.

We (www.littledrippers.com) have found that a crock pot on the warm setting is capable of holding beeswax at just above its melting point.  This allows the melted wax to stay liquid for an extended length.  Just be careful not to get the wax much above the melting point (the low setting may be too much) or it will start to darken and burn after several hours.  After the wax has been liquid for two or three hours you will notice (unless you found an excellent wax provider) dark brown particles covering the bottom of the pot.  We have yet to find a filter that is effective at removing these particles without getting into the high cost pressure filters. 

In reality, however, these particles are not a problem for the hobbyist.  Simply dip your wax from the top surface being careful not to stir up the bottom, dirty layer.  This upper surface wax is as clean and beautiful as any we have ever seen.  We just keep adding wax to the pot and keep dipping from the surface.  Once the pot gets too full of the “dirty wax” we empty it into a separate container and start over.  The “dirty wax” can be filtered and will produce a little good wax but we found it isn’t really worth the effort.  Instead, we us the “dirty wax” to make fire-starters.  We will explain this in a latter post.
 

 

Filtering Beeswax

We get asked all the time about how to filter beeswax.  Our web page www.littledrippers.com has a complete article with pictures showing how beeswax is collected and processed for use in candles and other beeswax products.  We were a Little vague, however in explaining how we filter the wax. 

First we do a coarse filtering through a small nylon mesh.  This gets out the big debris and makes the finer level of filtering easier.  Secondly, and lastly, we filter the melted wax through several layers of cheesecloth.  This is really all it takes to have a fine quality wax for practically any use.

One other tip:  you may not need to do much filtering at all.  For the most part, the debris and impurities in the beeswax will lay at the bottom of the melted wax.  As long as you dip from the upper part of the wax you are almost guaranteed the finest and purest beeswax without getting too worried about a perfect filtering job.  So don’t get so hung up about getting everything out of the wax.  Just skim off the top of the pot and spend your time making the wonderful creations available with beeswax.

 

Beeswax Candle Bloom

Beeswax is a joy to use and we use a lot of it in making our Beeswax Lotion Bars, Body Butter, and candles.  We must admit, however, that the candles are our favorite.  There is just something about the unique aroma of beeswax and the inviting yellow color.  We (www.littledrippers.com) have been making beeswax products for several years now and have come to really enjoy a phenomenon that occurs with beeswax.  It is called “beeswax bloom”. 

This is a completely natural process that occurs with pure beeswax.  The beeswax or candle in this case develops a white almost powdery coating.  We’ve yet to see it on candles in stores and assume either the candles aren’t pure beeswax or they sell them before it can develop.  From our experience it takes about nine months to get beeswax bloom on our candles.  We think it adds an extra touch of character to any candle.  Our favorites, however, are the snowman and Christmas tree.  These candles look incredible with the whitish dusting over the inviting yellow wax. 

If you do have beeswax that has developed this blooming effect and don’t want it (it doesn’t impact how the candle burns or smells) don’t fret.  It is easy to get rid of if desired.  Simply wipe it off or better yet (in our opinion) use a blow dryer and just lightly melt it away.  It adds a little extra sheen to the candle when melted slightly with the blow dryer and completely disappears.

Our recommendation, however, is to cherish this natural characteristic of pure beeswax candles and help educate people to appreciate it.  We get so accustomed to everything being perfect and the same that we are cheating ourselves of many of the natural wonders that could be enjoyed.  Let nature back into our lives and lets learn to appreciate the natural wonders that make beeswax candles (and other natural products) so unique and enjoyable. 

 

Homemade Lotion

I’ve been experimenting with different lotion recipes to enhance our product selection at www.littledrippers.com .  This led me to hundreds of different sites that claimed to have all-natural lotion recipes.  A few looked interesting and I gave some of them a try.  My conclusion was that most of these sites must not actually make the recipes they provide.  Many of them were trying to mix water soluble products with wax and oil.  Let’s get one thing perfectly straight, that doesn’t work.

I don’t care how fast you stir or how late in the process you stir it just doesn’t work.  Sure you can use a suspension base or something else to help slow the separation but bottom line you really need to use an emulsifier to make it really work. 

For those who like to keep things simple and natural the simplest and most natural emulsifier I know of is Borax.  A little Borax with beeswax creates a simple emulsifier that allows you to add water or honey to a beeswax and oil/butter base.  There is a lot of information on the web about this already so I won’t go into more details.

Personally, I prefer to not mix water based ingredients in my lotions.  It creates a shortened shelf life and introduces the possibility for bacteria to grow.  Why not just keep things in their natural state?  I simply remind my customers to use a little at a time.  You would be surprised how far an all natural lotion bar goes in comparison to a bottle of store bought lotion.  And the lotion bar or all natural stuff works much better.  If you are interested in a couple of lotion recipes that work and are produced and sold across the country we have them listed on our web page www.littledrippers.com under the recipes page.  Let us know if you have other recipes we can try and post as well.

 

Warm Day for the Honey Bees

November 22 was a warm day here in north central Pennsylvania.  The thermometer hit over sixty degrees and was a beautiful day.  Mikayla was outside playing when a honey bee started flying around her head.  I hadn’t seen a honey bee for about five weeks so thought I’d go check out the activity.

All four of the hives were busy with activity.  The bees obviously weren’t collecting nectar as the flower sources had long since frozen.  They did, however, have their pollen sacks full of brilliant yellow pollen.  It looked very much like golden rod pollen but I’m not sure where they would be getting it.

I have been a little concerned that my bees don’t have enough honey stores to get them through the winter.  With the warm weather I thought I’d help them out and fed two of the hives some remaining honey syrup I had made.  This was the first time I personally witnessed robbing activity.  The hives became extremely active and I noticed many fierce battles at the hive entrances.  In response I shut down the entrances to about 1/2 and inch and after about five minutes things seemed to be much more normal.

These warm days that allow the bees to break their cluster concern me.  I don’t know if it is factual but I get concerned that they eat more honey when it is warm and it will actually create a bigger problem when Spring comes.  On the other side, however, it was good to see that all four hives were still alive and apparently doing well.

If you are interested in more details on our honey bees we are putting photos and more detailed descriptions on our web page www.littledrippers.com .  Look for the working with honey bees page. 

 

Getting Links for new Web Page

It has become very apparent that one of the most important criteria for getting linked to a search engine is having other web pages link to your site.  Outside of trying to get linked to a bunch of non-related link pages and web rings it doesn’t appear that this is an easy thing to do. 

We have sent a request to be linked to dozens of sites but none have actually fulfilled their promise.  Of course, they require you to link to their sites first so I’m not sure if this isn’t just a ploy to promote their own site and there really isn’t any intention of linking to others. 

 Perhaps the greatest thing that has worked to get our web page out on the net is the pay-per-click advertising by Google.  It costs a little bit and we haven’t actually generated any sales from the ads but when we do a search on our url: www.littledrippers.com we now get about a dozen sites that pop up.  Not sure if this is really of any value but seems to be a positive thing.

We could use any suggestions or advice on how to get a new web-based business out in the marketplace.  Anyone have any thoughts?