We started keeping bees two years ago, not because we wanted to sell honey and beeswax products, but because we need to protect our pollinators. So keeping hives that contain up to 50,000 little flying pollinators is a great way to do that. I’m sure you know already, but here’s a reminder, over a third of the food we eat is as a result of pollinators. If we don’t protect them, we are not only putting ourselves in huge danger, but our whole ecosystem.
Right now (late summer) it’s the time of year to take honey from our hives (we currently have seven) but we only took a bit, where the bees had really made an excess. We left the majority of it for them to eat – it’s their food after all.
Once my husband had removed the honey frames, he was left with a good amount of beeswax cappings (it’s the bit you scrape off the comb to release the honey inside). We have washed them, and my daughter has melted it down and made some lovely little beeswax melts, scented with essential oils. These are perfect for burning on a little oil burner, for creating a really lovely scent in your home, and I’ll be sending them out with orders soon.
They smell incredible; a little bit like honey, but just this gorgeous natural scent. And did you know, as well as them giving off this beautiful aroma as they melt, burning beeswax is also incredibly good for you and so much better than other wax/candles. Here’s the lowdown on why:
1) Beeswax burns longer: giving you great value for money
2) Beeswax just smell so good, releasing the very gently honey scent.
3) Beeswax actually pull toxins from the air: when burned, beeswax produces negative ions which bind with air pollutants (positive ions) and drop to the floor, removing them from the air and leaving it cleaner! Wowzers. Bees are just so damn clever
4) It is soot free : because there are no toxins, you won’t get any black soot.
Isn’t that incredible?
Other wax/candles that are not good
As a side note, if you burn the kind of candles you can buy at most shops, the cheap sort, made of paraffin/petroleum by products (these can hold a large amount of fragrance and colour, so are often used for for candle, and it’s cheap), this is what you are burning:
- Even if there is no added fragrance or colour, these candles release numerous chemicals and toxins into the air when burned. Of course, they release even more of these harmful substances if there are added synthetic fragrances and/or artificial dyes in the candle.
- When inhaled, these candles can cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, trigger asthma symptoms and even lead to cancer (paraffin emits many carcinogens into the air when burned).
- Produces a black soot when burned (further evidence of toxins).
- taken from thehomeintent.com/benefits-of-beeswax-candles
So make sure to look out for beeswax candles because they are so much better for you.
And look out for our homemade beeswax melts – coming soon!
For more info on how to look after bees checkout my blog.
If you have any questions then just let me know.
