Bee Knowledgeable Answers: Beeswax

Honeybees produce wax and use it to create clever constructions inside the hive, called comb. Let’s take a closer look at beeswax and how it is used by bees (and humans).

1) How do bees make wax?
All worker bees have glands for making wax on the ventral, or belly, sides of their abdomens. The hive needs to be a certain temperature, 91-97F (33-36C), in order for the bees to produce wax from these glands. The size of the glands depends on the age of the bee. Once a worker starts flying regularly, they produce less wax as the glands begin to atrophy. The wax comes off of these glands in scales that are .12” (3mm) across and .0039” (1mm) thick. New scales of wax are clear, and become opaque when the honeybees chew it and shape it. That is why freshly made honeycomb is pure white in color. It takes 1100 of these tiny, transparent scales to make a gram of wax.

The photo below shows a match stick on top for size comparison and three freshly made, transparent wax scales in the middle of the bottom row.
All the items in this picture are (from top to bottom, left to right): A match stick, three chunks of pollen, some propolis, and another small ball of pollen from a different flower source, a honeybee’s wing, three scales of new wax, and a varroa mite.

photo: Waugsberg

2) How do bees construct comb, what is it used for, and what features does it have?
Honeybees chew the wax the produce and use their mouths limbs, and antenna to shape it into hexagonal cells, or rooms. They begin construction on the roof of their hive and build each wax cell vertically, effectively creating their comb. Bees use their heads to measure how big the cell should be.
Bees use the wax combs they build to raise their young and store their foods, honey and pollen. When used to house bee babies, it is called brood comb. When used for food, it is called honeycomb. Each cell of the honeycomb is angled slightly upwards so that the honey will not run out. Comb darkens as it absorbs detritus and other impurities, brood comb gets the darkest. Honeybees also mix the wax with honey and secretions to make propolis, the substance they use to weatherproof the hive and glue things together.
If you look closely at honeybee comb, you can see that all the cells on one side of the sheet of comb are slightly offset from the cells on the other side. The cells are not perfectly aligned back-to-back. Yet they are still perfectly aligned with each other to take advantage of the hexagonal shape and brace, or strengthen each other. This reinforces the comb, and it is able to support many times its own weight in pounds of bees or stored foods.

This photo is of a comb constructed by the Red Dwarf honeybee from southern Asia, Apis florea. It shows clearly how the hexagonal cells are built slightly offset.

photo: Sean Hoyland

 
3) What do people use beeswax for?
Humans have a multitude of uses for beeswax. It is a common ingredient of food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Just a few of these examples would include using wax to encase cheese or make some kinds of candy. Lip balms and lotions are made with wax. The most obvious wax tool is the candle. The ancient Egyptians were recorded beekeepers and had many uses for beeswax. In the Middle Ages, beeswax was a valuable enough commodity to be used as currency, or money.
Wax was basically man’s first plastic. It has been used for modeling, gluing, binding, and sealing for thousands of years.