What is beeswax?
None of us would have enough to eat if not for the labors of the Apis Millifera; the humble honey bee. Bees collect nectar, the sweet juice (like sugar water) that flowers produce to attract bees and other insects, to specifically get their ‘sexual service’ of pollination (Betz). Pollen grains cling to their hairy-fuzzy bodies which are carried on their bodies to the next flower they visit, thus pollinating the flower (Betz, Langworthy). It is estimated that every three bites of food out of ten that human beings eat is the result of the pollination of honey bees (Langworthy).
The honey bee body uses enzymes to turn the nectar sucrose into a glucose and fructose compound which is honey (Animal Discovery.com). They also collect pollen grains in special sacs or baskets on their legs called corbiculums (Wikipedia). Together this comprises the food for both the adult and young bees. The larvae are fed ‘royal jelly” for the first two days after the Queen lays them, then honey for the rest of their lives. Royal jelly is made by the bees by chewing up the pollen grains and adding milk-like substance from a gland on their heads. Interestingly, the queen bee eats only royal jelly all her life and it is fed to her by the worker bees (Wikipedia, Everything about the Honey Bee website). Bees also make a product called propolis from tree sap, resins, and balsam and use it like a type of glue. The wax for the combs is a secretion from a series of glands on their abdominal rings and they sweat out the wax (Betz, Wikipedia). The honeycombs are in effect a honey food storage system for all the bees, nursery for young bee larvae, and a home for the bees (Betz).
There are three types of bees in a nest: the queen bee (there is only one per hive), the workers, both being female, and the drones which are males. New queen bees are made by feeding larvae exclusively royal jelly. She is many times larger than the other bees. The drones are for mating with the queen only. The queen goes on a “marriage flight” to be fertilized with up to one dozen drones in mid air (Betz). Some of the drones may be from other colonies. The drone’s sex organ is barbed and when fertilization is complete the drone dies. Only five percent of the hive is drones (Betz). If there are drones left when winter arrives the male drones are kicked out of the hive. The hive survives the winter because the worker bees collectively work to keep the hive temperatures above freezing. They do this by clustering and shivering which raises the temperature inside the hive. The worker bees rotate from the outside to the inside to keep from freezing to death. The process works as the center temperature is an average of ninety-three degrees Fahrenheit. In winter an average hive has a population of twenty to thirty thousand members and in summer sixty to eighty thousand members (Bing.com, Videos of Honey Bees).
Bees go through a complex metamorphosis: egg, larvae, pupae, and adult; much like a butterfly does. The female adult worker bees have many jobs in a lifetime such as nurses, guards, housekeepers, construction workers, foragers, and undertakers. They take on jobs they are capable of as they age. In summer worker bees live about six weeks and in winter can live from four to six months (U-tube, Honey bee Lifecycle Video). They literally wear themselves out working in summer. Their wings can become very tattered. The queen lives from three to five years on average and lays fifteen- hundred to two thousand eggs per day which is more than her own body weight. Laying eggs is her sole function (Betz, U-tube Honey Bee Video).
It takes thousands of bees an average of forty-eight thousand miles of flight to collect pollen for one quart of honey and it is estimated that the worker bees in a hive visit one hundred flowers in a day (Langworthy). Each hive stores an average of sixty-six pounds of honey. Honey has a low PH which makes it acidic (Animal discovery.com). Honey has been found after two thousand years to still be edible. It does not go bad (Betz, Animal Discovery.com). The thickness of honey is created by thousands of bees in the hive fanning the nectar in the combs to evaporate any water molecules (U-tube, Honey Bees Life Cycle, Betz). The honey bee is the only bee genre that dies after it uses its stinger. When the stinger is plunged into flesh and the bee pulls away she is gutted by the process. Male drones do not have stingers but die in a similar fashion fertilizing the queen (Webpage, Everything about the Honey Bee).
Bees communicate to each other. Forager bees come back to the hive and do a little dance which communicates to the other bees that there is food near, not too far away, or far away. The rotation of their bodies communicates different messages (Betz, Langworthy).
The humble, hard working honey bee is becoming endangered all over the world. A type of mite pest is killing the bees and it is thought by some scientists that the pesticides mankind uses on crops is a cause of their disappearance as well. Pesticides can kill them immediately by getting on their bodies, or ingesting it, or also by carrying it back to the honeycomb nest and contaminating it. New forms of systemic pesticides are thought to take up to six months to show damage to the bee’s neurology, and are likely causing “colony collapse disorder” (Betz, Langworthy). The honey bee makes no enzymes that protect it against toxins (Betz). This is a very serious problem considering how many of the world’s food crops are pollinated by honey bees. Needless to say researchers are studying the situation looking to help the bees. If one feels concern avoid using pesticides in your garden and plant flowers that are known attractants to bees. Vast fields of one crop planting (mono-cultures) causes food deserts for bees (Betz, Langworthy).
Honey bees cannot survive without the hive. They are biologically dependent on the whole hive community and if they get lost they die in a short period of time. Honey bees spend their lives working for the collective hive (Betz, Langworthy). They have much to teach us. I am fascinated with the honey bee. The more I know about them the more they become reverent to me. I have allergies to pollens and eat local honey daily which acts to teach my immune system these pollens are not dangerous to my body. With each delicious bite I pay homage to the bee’s hard work. I am grateful to them. As a child of four I was stung hundreds of times by wasps. It was a traumatic experience to say the least but amazingly I am not afraid of bees. I love watching them go about their work in my garden.
If you are interested in learning more about the humble honey bee there is a list of websites, some with wonderfully educational videos, in the works cited section of this thesis and at the end of this chapter. Now, for some more interesting facts on wax and human inventiveness in using wax in our daily lives, read here.
Betz, John, producer. Taggart Siegel, director. Netflix Documentary Film. “Queen of the Sun. What are the Honey Bees Telling Us?” Collective Eye Production, Inc.
Langworthy, George, Maryam Henein, producers and directors. William Gaz, editor. Heneim Langworth and James Erskine, writers. Netflix Documentary Film. “Vanishing of the Bees” Hive Mentality Films and Hip Fuel. Funded by Ceres Trust. @2010 Long Live the Queen.