Bax Bees Honey and Beeswax blocks

March 16, 2019

Bax Bees Honey and Beeswax blocks

What better way to spend a very wet afternoon than taking the family to visit Bax Bees in Plumley, Cheshire?

I had passed the beautiful and eye catching HONEY sign regularly when driving down the A556 but never popped in. But I have a plan. I am going to start making my own bees wax wraps. I had looked online and yes, you can buy 'food grade' bees wax on ebay from China but I didn't feel very comfortable with this and was sure it would arrive wrapped in loads of plastic, and the distance of its travel is not very "eco". I had a look on Bax Bees website and noticed they had the wax so a visit was required as they are only just down the road.

The shop is beautiful, I have never seen to many different colours of honey in jars. Henry the head bee keeper was lovely, full of information and gave us so much of his time. He showed us the bees in the observation hive where we got to see the bees up close, see the comb structure, we did not manage to spot the queen bee, maybe next time. He then showed us around the honey extraction room with all its large machines where the honey is all put in to the jars. And on top of all of that they did have the blocks of bees wax. A fantastic outcome. (oh and to encourage recycling they will give 50 pence off your next jar of Bax Bees honey in return for the hexagonal glass jar from any of their products. Help keep both your and their costs down and save the environment too!)

Why Food Grade Beeswax?
The food grade beeswax is different to other bees wax or other wax. I have extracted this from their own website to explain:

Completely safe-to-eat beeswax made only from the cappings from our mid summer honey crop. This results in a naturally light wax that is freshly made by the bees just a few weeks before it is harvested. This means there’s very little exposure to the environment and a minimum chance of contamination. During the rendering process it only comes into contact with food grade stainless steel and is treated with the same high level of hygiene as all Bax Bees food products. It is gravity filtered and rendered at a temperature below 80’C which preserves all its anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties. This makes it ideal for a non stick layer on baking trays, barbecue grills and canele moulds, wrapping cheeses, making natural food wrap, etc.

You can order the bees wax online on their website as well as picking it up in the lovely store.

We were not there for longer than 15 minutes in total, but I felt I had learnt a lot about bees, honey and wax blocks. We came back with two beautiful jars of honey and three blocks of food grade bees wax. I am now ready to have a nice piece of hot bread, straight from the oven, with butter and honey. And start thinking about making bees wax wraps. Watch this space for a post on how I get on.