Beeswax in the hive
Beeswax is one of two materials that honeybees use to construct the internal structure of their hives. (The other is propolis, a harder substance that is used to seal gaps and protect the interior of the hive from the elements.) Inside the hive, worker bees make hexagonal cells out of beeswax. The queen lays her eggs in some of the cells, and this is where future generations of bees are raised to maturity. The other use of the cells is for storing honey. Cells are normally arranged in a double layer with the cells lying horizontally and opening on opposite sides. The cells where bees are raised (brood cells) are closed with a cap of beeswax when the occupant is in the pupal stage. Honey storage cells are closed with a cap of beeswax when they are full.
Worker bees live longer during the Winter, but in Summer they live short, intensive lives. In simple terms, workers spend:
three weeks developing in a cell from egg to adult,
the next three weeks performing tasks within the hive,
their final three weeks foraging outside the hive for nectar and pollen.
There is a close relationship between the production of beeswax and the production of honey. Bees make storage cells for honey using wax. They consume honey in order to secrete the wax to make and cap the cells. Bees eat eight measures of honey in order to produce a single measure of wax. There are differing estimates of how much wax is needed to store honey. Most estimates fall in the range of 22 Kg and 30 Kg of honey stored in 1 Kg of wax cells.
I’ve often seen it quoted that a worker bee will produce about one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey during her lifetime. (I haven’t been able to track down the source of the research behind this estimate.) If it is true, and a teaspoon of honey is taken to be 5g, then a kilogram of honey is the lifework of around 2,400 bees. Extending this to wax production, a single kilogram of beeswax is the lifework of almost 20,000 bees.
Why beeswax is so useful
Beeswax is not a single chemical compound. It’s mixture comprising mostly esters of fatty acids and various long-chain alcohols. Two of the properties of this mixture make is especially useful.
Firstly, beeswax is remarkable stable. It doesn’t deteriorate over time through exposure to the atmosphere, to water, or to sunlight. It doesn’t get attacked by mould or bacteria. This resistance to mould and bacteria makes it a useful preservative that can be added to other substances.
Secondly, unlike vegetable waxes and petrochemical waxes, beeswax doesn’t melt over a very narrow temperature range. It gradually softens before it melts, and the changes take place at temperatures that can occur in temperate climates. At 0 C beeswax is hard and brittle. At 20 C, often described as “room temperature”, beeswax is solid but no longer brittle. It can be shaved or carved. At 37 C it is softer and can be absorbed by human skin. It softens more as the temperature increases until it is completely liquid above 62 C – 64 C.
Sources of beeswax
Beekeepers render beeswax to remove the dirt and debris that becomes mixed with the wax in a hive. They put the wax in a pot with water, and then heat the pot until the wax melts. The molten wax floats on the surface of the water and the solid contaminants sink to the bottom of the pot. The pot is left to cool, and then the solid wax can be removed. The cleaned wax can be re-melted and poured into moulds. Here are a couple of tablets of wax from my local farmers’ market. One has been more successfully rendered than the other.
Commercial suppliers of beekeeping equipment give credit to beekeepers for beeswax. The suppliers render the wax and use it to make “bee form” and other beeswax products that they sell. Bee form is beeswax in sheets that have the outline of cells imprinted in them. The sheets are fixed into the frames that fit in a hive, encouraging the bees to create tidy frames of cells for brood and honey. Nowadays bee form is most often seen rolled around a wick and sold as decorative candles.
Refined beeswax in the form of pellets is sold for a range of purposes. The wax may be yellow, or it may be bleached to a near-white colour. This is the form in which most individuals and commercial organizations buy beeswax as an ingredient for their products.
Beeswax in cosmetics
Pictures and carvings of ancient Egyptians sometimes show a cone-shaped object on the heads of people. I used to think that this cone-shaped accessory was an elaborate hairstyle. More recently, I’ve discovered that they were cones of beeswax scented with fragrant oils. The perfumed wax melted and ran down over the wearer’s body, masking less fragrant body odours.
Solid perfumes are still in use, and beeswax is still a key ingredient. I use a mixture of:
30 parts shea butter
10 parts jojoba oil and
4 parts beeswax
as the base for solid perfumes. The beeswax extends the range of temperatures over which the perfume softens and melts. The butter, oil and wax combination softens and moisturises skin, in contrast to alcohol-based perfumes that can be drying or irritating.
An oil, butter and beeswax combination is the basis of lip-balms. Beeswax for use in cosmetics is usually food-grade.
Many cosmetic formulations include water-based ingredients blended with oils, butters and waxes. Water is the best moisturiser for skin, but its effects are short-lived. Oils and waxes soften skin and help to lock in moisture. But it is difficult to persuade water-based ingredients to mix with oil-based ingredients, and even harder to persuade them to stay mixed. To make things even more difficult, mixing oils with water creates the perfect environment for bacteria and moulds to thrive. Beeswax stabilises mixtures of oils and water because it is an emulsifier. It is also a preservative, supressing the growth of bacteria and moulds in oil and water mixtures containing up to 50% water.
Beeswax in candles
The most common material used for making candles in the middle ages was tallow. Tallow is rendered animal fat. It makes effective candles. The downside of using tallow candles is that they have a smell when they burn, not a particularly strong smell, but not attractive. More importantly, tallow candles produce soot when they burn. Spring Cleaning is claimed to have originated from being able to see the covering of soot left by tallow candles when days became lighter in the Spring.
Beeswax burns cleaner than tallow, with a brighter light. It has a more pleasant odour. However it was not as plentiful and therefore it was more expensive. Supplies of beeswax for candles were appropriated by the Church, and the wealthy.
Nowadays beeswax is not such a rare and expensive material for making candles, but retains its reputation for quality. The most common material for making candles is paraffin wax, a petrochemical. Vegetable waxes, notably soya wax, are a popular and more sustainable alternative.
I make candles with a blend of roughly 90% soya wax and 10% beeswax. The addition of beeswax, in my opinion, creates a blend that burns a little brighter and is a little harder than soya wax alone.
Other uses for beeswax
In no particular order, here are a few other uses for beeswax:
As a component of sealing wax.
In polishes used to preserve and beautify wood.
As a lubricant, for example on the runners of the drawers in wooden furniture.
As a modelling material in the lost-wax casting process.
To form the mouthpieces of a didgeridoo, and the frets on the Philippine kutiyapi – a type of boat lute.
As a filler in the joints of the slate bed of pool and billiard tables.
In the decoration of batik fabrics.
