Wax melter 30kg ApiCera®

01 · THE THERMOSTAT GOES TOO HIGH

65-70 °C is enough

Beeswax melts at 62-65 °C. With the thermostat at 65-70 °C you have wax that is liquid and workable, and still margin before the point where above roughly 85 °C it starts to darken and lose its scent.

Turning the thermostat to the top does not speed things up much and it does cost you colour. And do what the machine itself recommends: check with an external thermometer, because the thermostat reads the water or the wall, not the wax.

02 · HOW LONG WITH A FULL TANK

Reckon on two and a half to three hours

With 29 litres of water and 30 kg of wax starting cold, a 2,000 W element needs on the order of two and a half to three hours. That is not the machine being slow: it is physics.

More than half that energy goes into the latent heat of fusion — wax absorbs an enormous amount of heat while turning from solid to liquid without rising in temperature — and much of the rest into heating the water. That is why turning up the thermostat does not shorten it: that heat has to be supplied regardless. What does help is breaking the wax up before loading it and not filling the tank to the brim when you do not need to.

03 · OTHER WAXES YES, SOAP BETTER NOT

One tank, one material

It melts other waxes without trouble: vegetable ones such as rapeseed wax ask for even less heat than beeswax. And it serves what wax needs next — candles, foundation and coating plastic frames so the bees will accept them.

What we do not recommend is alternating with soap base or other materials. Wax leaves a film on the steel and in the gaskets that hot water will not remove. If you work pure vegetable wax to sell as such, that residue is also a traceability problem: one tank, one material.

04 · THE WATER AND THE 2,000 W

Elbow level, and check the board

It is filled with water up to the level of the inverted elbow, and that level gets watched: if it dries out, the element works empty. It is the classic failure of any water bath.

And one check before buying that is easily forgotten: 2,000 W in a workshop that already has an extractor, a decrystalliser and lights may ask for more than the circuit gives. Look at the board first.

05 · THE OUTLET IS HALF AN INCH

Not the honey size

The outlet valve is Ø ½ inch, worth keeping in mind because it does not match the honey line, which in a honey house is inch and a half. Your extractor fittings and hoses will not serve here.

The tank measures 65 × 28 cm and 68 cm high, and weighs about 19 kg empty. Full of water and wax it goes past 75, so put it where it is going to stay.

06 · BEFORE YOU BUY

Check the electrical supply for the 2,000 W, and decide which material the tank is for: alternating is not a good idea.