With the coming Winter its time for chapped lips and sore hands. Since I have no idea what they put into commercial skin lotions, something natural is going to be better.

Here is a short tutorial over on The Old Welsh Farm site, which shows you how to render down bee's wax combs, and how to add some natural ingredients to make something to help dry skin. I'll have to see if I have any combs left over next Fall to make something like this, since I'm going to try and domesticate a bumble bee queen for my garden next Spring.

"HOW TO MAKE A HEALING HONEY HAND SALVE"

And you get a bit extra about a self cleaning mesh for bees to scrape off mites.

Rending wax from combs seems pretty easy. You collect the combs first until you have a sizable amount,

1) Pick off any visible debris, then put all the combs together into a cheese cloth bag and put into an old pot. You will not be able to clean this pot, so pick one you can keep and reuse.

2) Add some water, enough to cover most of the bag. Heat on low. You don't want to go above 200F degrees or you risk a fire. Wax if flammable, so don't leave it unattended.

3) Once the wax has melted, remove the chees cloth and throw away. You can if you are really into getting the most out of it, place the cheese cloth and debris into a second pot, add water and heat to just the beginning of a boil, then remove the cloth and pour that water into the first. This will get the last bits of wax out of the debris but can be a bit dangerous.

4) Place the pot somewhere it won't be disturbed to cool. What you will see is the wax float to the top of the water and solidify. After a few hours a layer of wax should form. Carefully pour off the water.

5) If you are going to store the wax, place the pot back on the stove and give it a brief bit of heat, just enough to melt the wax, then pour it into the container you are going to store it in.

Otherwise, proceed to adding your essential oils.

You'll have to experiment a bit with the ration. Start in the neighborhood of 4 parts oil (olive oil or other). Here is a good other article on that

"A Quick Guide to Beeswax & Liquid Oil Ratios"

Add any recipes you have for skin care products to this thread.