Making Rolled Beeswax Candles

During our Civil War Unit earlier, we tried our hands at candle-dipping---so to go with our discussion of Beeswax during this Bee Unit, we decided to make rolled beeswax candles. I remember making these with my mom when I was young. It is a really fun, easy craft. We had this kit which includes the beeswax sheets and the wicks.

Speaking of beeswax sheets, here is a video we enjoyed about how they are made!

And this is one of the coolest things we've ever seen: a video about how those beautiful layered carved candles are made. It looks so simple, but it must take tons of practice to do it so perfectly. I had never seen one of these candles before seeing this video, but now I want one! :)

We made several long candles, a few shorter ones, and then a bunch of teeny-tiny ones from the scraps! It was fun to cut smaller shapes out of the beeswax and stick them on the outsides of the candles for decoration. We found it was easier to make things stick together if we heated them up for a few seconds with the hairdryer first.

We had fun burning these candles during our Bee Celebration at the end of the unit!