| All bees make wax in epidermal glands to cover their outer layer of cuticle to prevent water loss. Beeswax softens at 90 deg F (32 C) and melts between 143 and 151 deg. F (62-66 C). The flashpoint (temperature at which beeswax flares up and burns fiercely) is 490-525 deg F (254-274 C) Beeswax is very stable. Samples thousands of years old are nearly identical with new wax. Beeswax does not oxidize and it is not affected by mildew. Beeswax is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, combined into about 300 different long chain molecules. The aroma of beeswax is created by 48 hydrocarbon compounds. Of 100 volatile constituents in beeswax, only 41 have been identified. Although beeswax has been traded for thousands of years, there are no formal grades or standards for the product in the USA or anywhere else. When the bees make one pound of beeswax into comb, it will hold 22 pounds of honey. About one pound of cappings beeswax is produced for every 54 pounds of extracted honey. Young worker bees secrete pure white droplets of wax called "scales." One pound of beeswax contains approximately 800,000 scales. Bees must consume eight to ten pounds of honey to produce one pound of beeswax. The oldest known notebooks used sheets of beeswax for pages. Recovered from ancient Mediterranean shipwrecks, stylus marks pressed in the wax pages can still be read after centuries on the sea floor. |