All About Beeswax

Beeswax is incredible! It looks beautiful, smells divine and is a multi-purpose ingredient in so many of the products that we use every day (think soap, moisturizer, chapstick, deodorant, make-up). You’re probably well aware that bees make the beeswax, but have you ever wondered what they use it for and how it’s made? Honey bees use beeswax as the foundation of their home. They store pollen, nectar, capped honey, and raise their brood (eggs, larvae, pupae) in the individual cells. Beeswax is secreted as a liquid from eight wax-producing glands on the worker bee’s abdomen. The liquid wax hardens into white flakey scales once it contacts the cool air. Worker bees have different roles within the colony depending on their age. Young worker bees, or ‘house bees’, who are roughly 12 to 20 days old are the ones responsible for producing beeswax.

A worker bee secreting fresh wax scales from her abdomen

In order to shape the beeswax scales into the beautiful hexagonal honeycomb, the bees form a chain with their bodies. This behavior is called ‘festooning’. As the house bees secrete wax, the scales are passed along the chain of festooning bees. The bees use special hairs on their hind legs to receive the wax scales. They pass the wax forward to their mouths to knead, mold and mix it with mandibular secretions so it becomes pliable for construction. It’s during this process that the white wax begins to take on a slight yellow hue and develops its opacity. The color is enhanced with the pollen and nectar that’s stored in the hexagonal cells. It’s been estimated that it takes about 1,100 individual wax scales to make 1 gram of wax!

Festooning bees making beeswax

With ample food stores and warm temperatures in the hive, worker bees can produce beeswax on demand. The ambient temperature of the hive needs to be between 91*F and 97*F (33*C and 36*C). To achieve and maintain this temperature on cool days, the bees cluster around the wax-producing bees to generate heat as they build the comb. 

Over the millions of years that bees have been on Earth they have learned that building the cells in a hexagon shape allows for them to hold the most honey by weight while using the least amount of wax. Beeswax is super energy intensive for the bees to make. They must consume 8 pounds of honey to produce 1 pound of wax. To conserve energy, bees will often reuse beeswax which can also influence the overall color of the wax. The darker the beeswax, the more times it’s been used (a darker piece of comb means that baby bees were reared inside the cells).

In our next post about beeswax we’ll explore how you take the wax from your hive and cure it to use for candles, soap, lotions, and all your other crafty ventures. In the meantime, tell us your favorite things to make with beeswax! We’d love to hear from you.