Beeswax Candle Making Can be Easy and Fun

Beeswax candle making? There’s nothing to it! Beeswax makes the very best candles, and there’s a very easy way to make beeswax candles. And making candles from beeswax is a great project for kids.

You can even buy kits that supply everything you need to make beautiful, handmade beeswax candles.

What’s So Great About Beeswax Candles?

Throughout much of history, beeswax has been the only wax available for making candles. But fortunately, beeswax has always been the best wax for making candles. And even today, with all of the different types of waxes available, beeswax still makes the best candles.

That’s because beeswax candles are clean burning with a flame that burns brighter than other candles. And beeswax candles don’t emit smoke or unpleasant odors. On the contrary, beeswax candles burn with a delicate, honey-sweet floral scent.

Beeswax candles burn longer than other types, and the flame provides a warm, sunny glow, without the flickering common to other types of candles.

How to Make Beeswax Candles

Beeswax candle making is very easy if you use sheets of beeswax. You simply cut a wick to the proper length, and then roll the sheet of beeswax tightly around the wick. A very easy way to make a beautiful and functional beeswax candle!

Here’s a video made by a fellow beekeeper that does a great job of showing how to make beeswax candles:

Making beeswax candles using this method is far easier than melting beeswax and then either dipping candles or pouring the wax into candle molds. It’s a lot safer, too – beeswax is highly flammable.

As noted in the video, you just need to be careful that the wax is warm enough not to be brittle. When people have trouble using this method of making candles, it’s usually because the wax is not warm enough to roll without cracking or breaking. (It will do that a little when you first start the roll. But if the wax is warm, the beeswax sheet will conform beautifully to the shape of the candle as the circumference increases.)

Making candles from beeswax using this method is also a great project for kids. Can’t you just imagine the delight of a child in making his or her own beeswax candle, and then lighting it for the first time?

Beeswax Candle Making Kits

The only item needed for making rolled beeswax candles that you might not be able to get locally is the beeswax.

But there are beeswax candle kits available online that supply everything you need for making beeswax candles (and you might be able to find these kits locally, too).

These beeswax candle making kits also offer a choice of many different sizes and colors of beeswax sheets. Click here to see the candle making kits offered by Amazon.com. (There’s even a kit designed specifically for kids.)

And if you can find everything else you need locally, but just need the sheets of beeswax, you can go here to buy individual beeswax sheets, picking and choosing from 18 different colors.

Have fun!

A Note of Caution:

Be careful about the material you buy for wicks.

Some wicks have a core containing a metal such as zinc or tin. And some wicks used to contain lead cores, which of course, would release lead particulates into the air as they burned.

Not good!

Lead wicks were banned from the marketplace in 2003, but that applies to the U.S. If you're buying wick material (or whole candles) made or sold outside the U.S., make sure you're not getting lead-cored wicks.

The other metals currently used in some wicks have not been shown to be harmful to my knowledge. But if you don't want to use metal-cored wicks, be alert about what you're getting when you buy a candle-making kit.

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