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Beeswax is a substance made by honeybees. It has many useful properties, not only for the success of the hive but also as a natural ingredient for consumer products. It can be used for household items, but there are also biological benefits.
Bees play an important role in keeping our world functioning. With the amount of pollination that they do, they contribute to various animal and plant species’ survival, including our own. Not only that, bee products are now an integral part of consumer products. These products are growing in popularity, and help bring attention to all the work honeybees do for nature and people.
What Is Beeswax?
Besides growing in demand as a natural alternative to plastics and synthetic chemicals, beeswax is an important material used for building the beehive. It is made to store food and house the young bee larvae. Beeswax is made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, which are formed into long carbon chains. This structure makes beeswax easy to sculpt once it’s been harvested and cleaned.
Worker bees make beeswax by turning their nectar and honey stores into compounds. They work together and use their small bodies to make the product. Those compounds are secreted from special glands on the bee’s abdomen.
Chinese wax, also called Chinese Insect-wax, or insect wax, white or yellow-white crystalline wax, is similar to cetacean, but is harder, more brittle, and has a higher melting point. It is deposited on the branches of some trees by the scale insect Ceroplastes ceriferus (common in China and India) or a related scale insect, Ericerus pe-la (in China and Japan). Both of these scale insects belong to the order Homoptera, the order Trematodes. Insects and their secretions are collected, boiled with water, and raw wax is extracted. The bodies of the insects sink to the bottom of the water and are used as food for the pigs. Waxes in China are mainly used to make candles and polishes, and to sizing paper. In China, waxes are used in medicine. Taken internally, it is used to treat hoarseness, pain, worms, nervous tension, and to aid in the repair of broken bones. Externally, it is used as an ointment to treat wounds.
