What Is Beeswax?
When we think about honeybees, most people naturally think about honey.
But inside every hive, the bees are producing another remarkable natural material too — beeswax.
Beeswax is what honeybees use to build the honeycomb that forms part of their home. It provides the structure where the colony raises young bees, stores pollen and keeps honey safely contained.
For us, beeswax is also the beginning of many of the products we make at Stax Of Wax ltd.
But before it becomes a candle, polish or another handmade product, it starts with the bees.
What Is Beeswax?
Beeswax is a natural wax produced by worker honeybees.
Young worker bees have special wax-producing glands on the underside of their abdomens. When the colony needs to build or repair comb, these bees produce tiny flakes, or scales, of wax.
The bees then work together to shape and mould these small pieces into the familiar hexagonal cells of honeycomb.
So although a sheet of honeycomb can look simple when we see it finished, there is an enormous amount of work behind it.
Why Do Bees Make Beeswax?
Beeswax is an essential building material inside the hive.
The honeycomb made from it is used for several important jobs within the colony.
Raising Young Bees
The queen lays eggs in the cells of the honeycomb, and the developing young bees remain there while they grow.
Storing Honey
When nectar has been transformed into honey and the bees have reduced its water content sufficiently, they store it inside the honeycomb.
When the honey is ready, the bees seal the cells with a thin layer of fresh wax called a capping.
Storing Pollen
Honeycomb also provides somewhere for the colony to store pollen, which is an important source of nutrients for the bees.
The comb therefore becomes much more than just a collection of hexagonal cells. It is part of the working structure of the entire colony.
What Does Fresh Beeswax Look Like?
Newly produced beeswax can be very pale, sometimes appearing almost white.
As the comb is used inside the hive, however, it gradually changes.
Bees walk across it, pollen is stored in it, honey is stored in it and the comb comes into contact with propolis and other materials within the colony.
Over time, the wax can become increasingly yellow, golden and eventually much darker.
This is one reason that beeswax collected from different parts of the hive can look completely different.
Why Isn't All Beeswax the Same Colour?
The colour of beeswax can tell us something about its history.
Fresh wax is generally much lighter than older, well-used comb. Older wax has had more time to collect traces of pollen, propolis and other material from the hive.
This means that beeswax can range from very pale cream through yellow and golden shades to much darker brown wax.
The colour doesn't necessarily mean that one piece of wax is better than another. It often reflects how the wax has been used and what it has been exposed to within the colony.
Where Does Our Beeswax Come From?
The beeswax we use begins in our own beekeeping operation.
Throughout the beekeeping season, the bees build, repair and use their comb. As beekeepers, we also collect wax from parts of the hive where it is appropriate to do so, including wax left from the honey harvesting process.
Rather than simply treating this wax as waste, we can process it and give it another purpose.
This is where the journey from hive to home begins.
What Happens to Beeswax After It Leaves the Hive?
Raw beeswax collected from the hives isn't immediately ready to become a candle or another finished product.
It can contain small pieces of debris, old comb material, propolis and other natural remnants from the hive.
We therefore render and filter the wax to clean it and turn it into manageable blocks.
Those blocks can then become the raw material for the next stage of our beeswax products.
A piece of wax that began as part of a working honeybee colony can eventually become a handmade beeswax candle or something useful for the home.
From Beeswax to Handmade Products
This is one of the things we love about working with beeswax.
It allows us to see the whole journey.
Bee → wax → honeycomb → beekeeper → rendered beeswax → handmade product → home
The finished candle or tin of beeswax polish might look very different from the original wax, but the story behind it still begins in the hive.
For us, that's what Hive to Home means.
Why Beeswax Matters to Us
Beeswax isn't simply another material we happen to use.
It is something produced by the bees as part of the way their colony lives and works.
That makes us very conscious of where it comes from and how we use it.
Whenever we can take beeswax that would otherwise have little purpose and turn it into something useful, we're continuing the journey of a natural material that began inside the hive.
And that's why, when we make a beeswax candle, we're not just starting with a block of wax.
We're starting with the work of thousands of bees.
Learn More About Beeswax
This is just the beginning of the story.
There is much more to beeswax — from how honeybees actually produce it, to why the colour changes, how beekeepers collect and process it, and how we turn it into the handmade products you find here at Stax Of Wax.
Explore our Understanding Beeswax Page to follow the start of the journey from the hive through to the home.
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