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What is Beeswax?
November 19, 2019

Independent Chemical offers several beeswax blends for cosmetics, personal care, and pharmaceutical applications.  So what is beeswax?  Quite simply, beeswax is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus Apis that sees a variety of uses in popular consumer products. 

Worker bees in a honey bee colony secrete beeswax via eight wax producing glands on their abdomens.  The wax is secreted in thin sheets called scales.  The scales, which resemble mica flakes, are clear, colorless, tasteless, and brittle.  It takes roughly 1000 to 2000 of these scales to make a single gram of beeswax.  The composition varies with location, but consists mainly of a variety of long-chain alkanes, acids, esters, polyesters, and hydroxy esters.  Bees rapidly produce wax comb when they swarm in order to create a place to store food and provide a home for the queen to lay eggs.

In order to produce beeswax scales, bees feed on their honey.  On average it takes the consumption of roughly eight to ten parts honey to make one part beeswax.  Worker bees do no other work in the hive while secreting the wax.  Other worker honey bees use the secreted wax to assemble their honeycomb structures.  The six-sided honeycomb shape is stronger than a square or circle and provides the foundation for all bee colonies. 

The pollen and propolis that naturally stain beeswax give it its light golden brown color.  (Propolis is a resin compound produced by bees that is used as a sealant in the hive and is thought to help fight infections and heal wounds.)  Large amounts of pollen oils and propolis can result in beeswax that appears dark brown.  Typically when you see white beeswax candles the pollen and propolis have been naturally removed.  Bleach and hydrogen peroxide are commonly used for cosmetic applications, but most beeswax candle manufacturers used non-chemical methods to acquire white beeswax. 

Beeswax is somewhat brittle at low temperatures but soft and malleable at temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit and has a melting point between 140 and 150 deg F.  It is a very stable material – so stable in fact that archaeologists have discovered beeswax thousands of years old showing very little deterioration.  It is insoluble in water and has been recovered from shipwrecks in good condition after years of salt water exposure. 

One of the greatest benefits of beeswax products is that they are naturally-based, with the properties needed to encourage healthy, vibrant skin coming straight from the honey bee itself.  Beeswax cannot be precisely replicated via artificial means, and with demand for beeswax rising, this is just one example of why the health and survival of honey bee colonies is so vital.  In addition to being the world’s most important pollinator of food crops, honey bees provide us with a wealth of additional benefits that often go overlooked. 

Contact Independent Chemical today to learn more about our full range of cosmetic, personal care & pharmaceutical ingredients or to request a quote. 

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71-19 80th Street
Glendale, NY 11385
United States
718.894.0700
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