That’s a very interesting question and I don’t think I’m qualified to answer it.
I mean how pure do you want it and who do you trust – your local beekeeper or that great big processor?
Perhaps the magic is in the impurities like the pollen and the propolis, the lovely natural golden colour and the ‘beeness’ that the big processors remove.
Thank you for your thought-provoking question!

Appreciate if you could tell me whether there is a difference in beeswax thats fine strained in the above mentioned process vs the USP, BP grade or pure refined beeswax? Some blogs are using strained natural beeswax for making DIY cosmetics like lip balm while some are advising only to use 100% pure beeswax from beeswax refinaries… is there a purity difference between them? confused and would love some advise pls. Thank you!

Thanks Jane for such a detailed reply, much appreciated.
Regards
John

Hello John,
They say to use stainless steel because some metals can react with the beeswax and it will darken as a result. I’ve only ever used stainless steel so I can’t give you a first-hand reply to that one!
As for cleaning the wax – it’s best to consider this as a two stage process.
The first stage is to strain out large debris such as larval cocoons, chalkbrood, dead bees etc and in this case a 2-3mm mesh is best – fine mesh will just clog up. All your old combs, wax scrapings etc are melted in water and the whole lot is strained, the wax then sets in a cake on top of the water. As it cools, more impurities will drop through the wax and can be scraped off the bottom of the cake when it has set. Any sort of container which will hold boiling water without deforming can be used – I use 5 or 10 litre plastic mayonnaise buckets. Once cooled just take them outside, turn them upside down and shake them a bit – can be messy.
Tying it all up in a sack is just another way of doing this ie when it’s all melted you haul the sack out containing all the debris and leave the beeswax behind.
The second stage is where you re-melt your cakes of partially cleaned beeswax and fine-strain it prior to candle making or casting some moulds etc where you want the wax to be spotlessly clean. Here you melt the beeswax on its own, in a double saucepan – put ‘bain marie’ into google to see a picture. Once melted, old tights or muslin would be the perfect straining material.
The Williams method is a method which attempts to roll these two stages into one – I think only practical for very small amounts of wax. No, you wouldn’t put water into the jug. It’s like the sack method in miniature – you put the beeswax cappings into the jug and put the jug into a pan of boiling water.
Hope this clarifies things!