Solar Beeswax melter

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Putting the sun to work melting bees wax is quite a pleasure. I say this having hijacked pots from the kitchen and made them quite a big mess to clean up. Not worth the trouble. So I fabricated this solar wax melter and it works better than I ever thought it would. I put 8 to 10 pounds of wax, honey, propolis and miscellaneous bee stuff into this rig... and out comes bleached wax and pollen infused honey. The photo tells the story, this took about 6 hours in the sun. I still need to paint and make a permanent glass door for the top. Just had to try it out as it was 90 degrees and sunny today.

Maple syrup

Here's a shot of the old ice house that the previous residents ,the Amish, used for ice and we are now useing as a sugar shack. It keeps us out of the wind and a little warmer on the cool nights boiling sap.

For a bit of a change from my woodworking I just finished our maple syrup evaporator pan and wood fired arch. We just ran our first batch of 35 gallons of sap through the process with all its inherent difficult moments and we learned a lot. What fun! The door is open just to help show what is going on.