Finishing with Wax/Linseed oil finish. I just spent a month up at Chris Gavin's shop in Baltimore. Here's how he finishes almost all his iron.
First: descale with a torch. if you're not doing this yet, man will you like the ease in which the rest of the scale comes off with the wire brush.
Second: Heat the metal up until it's just too hot to hold and apply the wax / linseed oil mix*. It should lightly smoke as you rub it on. I used a rag to do this. It melts easy and flows into the cracks and corners.
Third: Let it sit and dry/cure for a day.
Fourth: Apply a coat of wax, not the mix, but just wax and let dry for at least a hour. Fifth: Rub to a nice low luster shine. If needed apply a second coat of wax after installation.
I got to take a look at work that was treated this way years ago and it still looked great.
Here's a mix recipe, but not his. I forgot to get it from him. Large can of Butcher brand bowling alley wax, 1/2 cup boiled linseed oil, thinner as necessary, and a couple of teaspoons of Jap dryer. Heat wax until melted and mix in all the rest. After it cools, it should be pretty soft, but still form as a solid.
*Because you're heating the metal to that high of temperature, I don't think adding Jap dryer is necessary. How much thinner is a matter of choice, controlled by how thin you want the mix. I would say, just enough to make it workable.
On the subject of bees wax, here's my two cents :-) Bee's wax is snowy white when the bees first draw out the comb, but all the walking around on it they do with their little dirty pollen covered feet, quickly turns it first yellowish then brown. Yes, I'm also a bee keeper. For those of you that aren't, why not? It's great fun. There's bee keepers in NY city, so you can do it anywhere.
In conversation with Peter Ross, He didn't think that the use of bee's wax was common (Expensive) in the old days. It's just something we modern day smiths have started doing, thinking it was the old way. Of course, I could easily have misunderstood him. However, if it's bee's wax you want, any bee supply catalog will sell blocks of wax. As an example:
Brushy Mountain Bee Farm - 1 800 BEESWAX sells wax for $4 a pound. As will any candle craft catalog.