December 29, 2023 – Beeswax. What is it? How is it made? Well, we start with a beehive. The hive is built from nothing, and when constructed, serves as a home, a giant food storehouse, and a nursery.
All three items are built from beeswax. So, what is it and how is it made? Basically, it’s a wax made (secreted) by eight honeybee abdomen glands and produced in scale form. To produce wax, the bees consume honey. During the 40 some-odd days of a honeybee’s life, they have a series of tasks. The task during days 12-20 is to produce wax. Afterwards, the glands atrophy, but can still make wax if necessary.
As wax is produced, other honeybees chew it and mold it into shapes. Next, the wax is used to build the hexagon shaped combs for use as a nursery and food storage container. It takes some 1,100 scales to make one gram of wax. Incidentally, 8.4 pounds of honey is needed to create one pound of beeswax. This hexagon shape requires the least amount of wax, holds the most honey, and takes up the least amount of space, while providing an ideal space for eggs to metamorphosize into a bee.
Beeswax is composed of many compounds (at least 248) which vary depending of the pollen and nectar sources. In order to be produced, hive temperature has to be 91°-97° F. In that temperature range, bees can produce wax on demand.
Bees have two stomachs; one for personal use and the other for storing honey collected. When she returns to the hive, the honey is put in a waiting cell which is then air dried down a water content of les than19% to prevent spoiling and then capped. Later, some of the honey will be fed to wax producers for conversion into beeswax.
