We buy cappings wax from four apiaries between Stanford and Napier, in twenty-kilogram slabs that still smell of the hives they came off. It is melted slowly, strained through cloth three times and left to settle overnight, and what is left is the yellow you can see in the tapers. Nothing is bleached and nothing is stretched with paraffin. Nothing here is scented or dyed either. Beeswax already smells of honey when it burns, and any fragrance oil you add sits on top of that and argues with it. It also burns cooler and slower than paraffin, so a candle that costs more on the shelf lasts a good deal longer on the table. A 30 cm taper gives about eight hours upright and out of a draught. A wide rolled pillar is closer to forty. Trim the wick back to five millimetres before every light — nearly every complaint we get about smoke or tunnelling is a long wick and nothing else.
Church Street, Stanford. Thursday to Saturday, 9h00 to 14h00, and other days by arrangement. Wholesale starts at twenty-four units — tell us what you need and we will send a price list.
