Beeswax Candles

When you have honey bees you also have loads of wax. 
Beeswax was used to make candles for churches and monasteries as long ago
as 3000BC.  Animal fat was used by the common people to make smelly tallow.
But for the houses of God only beeswax would do.  It's smell is reminiscent of
summer meadows;  it burns evenly and slowly without smoke.  So monks and
nuns became bee-keepers - caring for honey bees and processing their wax.
Madame Tussaud's first wax figures were made from beeswax poured into plastercasts
of the features of dead people.
Anyway today has been another horrible dark, windy, drizzly day.  So now is the time
to plunder the beeswax store and make some candles to use in our home and to sell at
the local show. 
Candle moulds are quite expensive to buy but give us a wide range of diferent shapes -
twists, tapers, night-lites, ornate columns, tree-shapes, beeskeps and many more. 
It's a bit fiddly threading the wick in and then pouring in molten wax.  You have to
be patient and wait several hours for the wax to set before you release the beautiful and
shiney wax model.  It's well worth the trouble.
While you wait you could make a few rolled beeswax candles which are quick to do and
a lot cheaper too.