I saved all our extra wax from last year and melted it down into a block so I could make candles with our own wax from our own bees. Since I wanted really special candles, I got a pound of bayberry wax from betterbee.com to add to them.
Actually, I wanted to render my own bayberry wax -[You get the bayberry wax by boiling bayberries. The wax coating melts off and floats. When it cools, it becomes hard like any other wax]. - so I spent days and days searching for a source for bulk bayberries by the pound. No go. If you ever find a source, let me know. In the meantime, I may have to plant some bushes here. We'll see.
I save my old candle jars for just this purpose, so I taped a wick to the bottom of the jar so it wouldn't wiggle and then wrapped it around a pencil that I laid across the top. [I used the zinc core wicking for this candle - still experimenting with different wicks] When the candle was cool, I cut it at the length I wanted.
Traditionally, bayberry candles were made from half bayberry wax and half beeswax. So that's what I did. In a double boiler unit, I melted a hunk of beeswax and a hunk of bayberry together. When they were all hot and melted, I poured it into the candle jar.
To prevent the wax from heaving as it cooled, I turned off the burner under the hot water in the pan and set the candle jar right in the water and let it all cool overnight. Worked like a charm.
Our wax is screaming yellow and bayberry wax is a gray green/olive color. The two together make this nice yellow green.
It smells divine.
