Candle Making

Candle making turns wax or rendered animal fat into a light that burns on its own. The wax is melted gently, a wick is set through the middle, and the liquid is either poured into a mould or built up by dipping the wick over and over. The result keeps indefinitely and needs nothing charged, so it still works when batteries are flat and nothing can recharge them. It is not the first light to reach for - a battery lantern is safer indoors - but it is the one that does not run out.

Three things separate a good candle from a dangerous one. The wax has to be clean. Beeswax off the hive carries pollen and propolis, the sticky resin bees seal their comb with, and it has to be remelted in water and strained, or the candle will sputter and throw hot droplets as it burns. The heat has to be controlled and high enough: a dipping bath sits around 65 C (149 F), a mould is poured closer to 100 C (212 F) without boiling, and holding the wax near that point for five to ten minutes drives off trapped water, the other cause of spitting. Wax poured too cool, or into a cold mould, sinks in the middle or cracks as it sets. And the wick has to match the candle: cotton threads plaited rather than twisted, since a twisted one unwinds in the flame, and thicker for a thicker candle, or the flame drowns in its own well.

The feedstock decides how much can be made. Beeswax comes from the cappings sliced off honeycomb at harvest, so the year's supply is whatever the hives gave rather than whatever is wanted. Rendered animal fat is the older alternative and the one that does not compete with a hive kept for honey. Either way it sits downstream of animals kept for another reason. Finished candles want a cool, dark place and a wrapping of clean paper to keep dust off - not newsprint, which transfers its ink into the wax.