Bee wax

“ Let us go on, then, with the story of our hive; let us take it up where we left it; and raise, as high as we may, a fold of the festooned curtain in whose midst a strange sweat, white as snow and airier than the down of a wing, is beginning to break over the swarm. For the wax that is now being born is not like the wax that we know; it is immaculate, it has no weight; seeming truly to be the soul of the honey, that itself is the spirit of flowers. ”

“ Wax is the animal fat of the bees, and to produce it requires a considerable consumption of honey to supply the drain upon the system. To be capable of passing through the pores of the abdomen, the wax must no doubt be a liquid oily matter, which, on making its appearance outside the abdominal rings, thickens, and exudes from under the four medial ones, in flakes like fish-scales, one on each side; so that there are eight of these secreting cavities, which are peculiar to the worker, not being found either in the queen or drone. ”

“ When young, full of ardor, adventurous, the bee follows the trade of wax-maker. It goes to the fields, seeking viands, visits the flowers, or sometimes is forced to assert itself and unsheath its sting, to put to flight some evil-intentioned aggressor; it sweats wax to make the storehouse and the little rooms where the brood of young ones is kept. Growing older, it gains experience, but loses its first ardor. ”

“ Wax. There are several varieties of this substance, but bees-wax is a secretion of that insect from its ventral scales. With this substance the comb is constructed; it takes the bees, according to Huber's account, twenty-four hours to secrete the six laminæ of wax in the wax pockets, which may be seen to exude between the segments of the under side of the abdomen of the bee. ”

“ There, little by little, the waxy matter oozes out, just as with us sweat oozes through the skin. This matter accumulates in a thin layer which the insect detaches by rubbing the stomach with its legs. There are eight of these wax-producers. When one is idle, another is working; so that the bee always has some layer of wax at its disposal.”
“And what does the bee do with its wax?”
“It builds cells, that is to say storehouses, where the honey is preserved, and little rooms where the young bees in the form of larvæ are raised.” ”

“ The wax-glands Besides the honey-bee, which secretes wax in little scales on the under side of the abdomen, the bodies of many other insects, such as the plant and bark lice, as well as the Psyllidæ, Cicadidæ (especially Flata and Lystra) , are covered with a waxy powder, or as in Chermes, Schizoneura, Flata, etc., with wool-like filaments of wax. ”

“ John Hunter, apparently unacquainted with antecedent conjectures, detected the genuine reservoir of wax under the bee’s belly. He considered wax as an external secretion of oil, formed and moulded between the abdominal scales of the insect. Dr. Evans confirms the testimony of Wildman and Hunter, having been an eye-witness to the formation of wax into - 364 - flakes. “One or more bees,” he remarks, “may be often seen before the door of the hive, supporting themselves by their two fore-feet, fluttering their wings, and agitating the hind parts of their bodies. ”

“ It is, however, seldom obtained from the animal itself, but is generally found floating on the surface of the sea.
Wax, you know, is a concrete oil, the peculiar product of the bee, part of the constituents of which may probably be derived from flowers, but so prepared by the organs of the bee, and so mixed with its own substance, as to be decidedly an animal product. Bees’ wax is naturally of a yellow colour, but it is bleached by long exposure to the atmosphere, or may be instantaneously whitened by the oxy-muriatic acid. ”

“ The wax-glands in the honey-bee are scale-shaped organs situated on the under side of the four last abdominal segments (Fig. 355) . These secrete the wax, which appears as whitish scales, and secretion is only possible when the bees have sufficient honey and pollen. The wax is secreted by the hypodermal cells rather than by glands within the abdominal cavity; the wax traverses the cuticular layer, and accumulates on its outer surface (Carlet) . ”

“ It is very difficult to follow, stage by stage, the manufacture of wax by the swarm, or even the use to which they put it, for all this comes to pass in the very blackest depth of the mass of bees all huddled together. We know that the honey in the sac of the bees that are clinging to each other turns itself into wax, but we have no idea how this is done. All we can tell is that they will stay in this position, never stirring or making the least movement, for eighteen or twenty-four hours, and that the hive becomes so hot that it is almost as though a fire had been lit. ”

“ It's not an easy matter to get in when the bees are not looking, but she manages it quite often; and when the little larvas hatch out of the eggs, they eat the wax and the mischief is done. When Mother Bee-Moth is seen the bees rush upon her and sting her to death. They have good cause to hate her, for the wax is precious, hard to make and to mould into the little cells. ”

“ By marking the bees, it was found that they never encroached upon each other’s employment: this strict adjustment of duty is the more remarkable, since the power of producing wax is common both to the nursing- and wax-working bees, a small quantity of wax being really found in the receptacles of the nursing-bees. ”

“ Unlike the queen of the hive, the foundress of this colony secretes wax, and does so even more abundantly than one of her workers.
2. The rapid formation of wax in the case of humble bees is very remarkable. Huber confined a number of them, and fed them during many days with pollen only; they produced no wax, constructed no cells, and laid no eggs; but on giving them honey, wax was produced in a few minutes, and the work of the colony proceeded.
The interior of a humble bee’s nest has none of the beauty and regularity of the hive. ”

“ While most of the wax is produced from these quiescent suspended individuals, yet any bee-keeper who is observant has discovered that at the height of the honey season many of the workers coming in laden from the fields will have wax scales protruding from some or all of the pockets. ”

“ It has long been very generally and implicitly believed, that the yellow matter (in other words, the pollen or farina of flowers,) which bees visibly collect upon their thighs, is the prime constituent of wax, the material of the honey-comb. Even Bonnet and Reaumur were of this opinion. Burler, Purchas, Rusden and Thorley have argued against its identity with wax; and I trust that the observations and experiments which I am about to detail, will convince the dispassionate inquirer of the fallacy of this old opinion. ”

“ Being quite a new invention, there has not been much time for fully testing it, but we find from American bee-keepers that when used-in large sheets there is the same difficulty as with our impressed wax—the bees will twist them. As specimens of work these comb foundations are certainly very commendable for appearance. The white ones seem too white to be of pure wax, and any substitute offered to bees has hitherto proved a failure. ”

“ Wax being a very bad conductor of heat, the thick walls prevent the chilling of the brood, and, at the same time, allow of considerable clustering of nurse-bees, and consequent generation of warmth, without the danger of the cells being broken down by the pressure. ”

“ In the one case as the other the bees are sustained by a certain store taken into themselves, but which by degrees becomes exhausted." To yield one pound of wax they require to consume from thirteen to twenty pounds of honey; so that it would seem as if honey was the food-forming principle of the wax, and pollen the stimulant that imparted to their own organs the capacity for effecting the transformation. ”

“ As soon, however, as a length of about five or six inches of the first comb has been made into cells, the bees which are bringing home honey no longer hang to make it into wax, but begin to store it in the cells. We all know where the bees go to fetch their honey, and how, when a bee settles on a flower, she thrusts into it her small tongue-like proboscis, which is really a lengthened under-lip, and sucks out the drop of honey. ”

“ It is not hard to understand that, since much honey is needed for the manufacture of wax, a bee after filling with the raw material would produce much more wax by keeping quiet than by using any of the gorged honey for energy in moving about and working. ”

“ A mixture of wax and propolis is used by the bees to strengthen the attachments of the combs to the top and sides of the hive, and serves most admirably for this purpose, as it is much more adhesive than wax alone. ”

“ Besides the honey and pollen which are gathered by bees, they collect a resinous substance, that is very tenacious, semitransparent, and which gives out a balsamic odour, somewhat resembling that of storax. In the mass, it is of a reddish brown colour; when broken, its colour approaches that of wax. Dissolved in spirit of wine or oil of turpentine, it imparts, as varnish, a golden colour to silver, tin, and other white polished metals. ”

“ It might otherwise have been supposed that bees might form comb from some particles of wax accidentally present in the honey, and that these afforded the pabulum for this secretion. To prove therefore that the saccharine principle alone enabled the bees to produce wax, being still confined, they were supplied with a syrup made with Canary-sugar and water, and at the same time comparative experiments were made in another hive, where the bees were fed on honey and water. The syrup-fed bees produced wax sooner and more abundantly than the honey-fed bees. ”

“ It has been found that bees require about twenty pounds of honey to secrete one of wax.
That nitrogenous food is necessary, as claimed by Langstroth and Neighbour, is not true. Yet, in the active season, when muscular exertion is great, nitrogenous food must be imperatively necessary to supply the waste, and give tone to the body. Some may be desirable even in the quiet of winter. Now, as secretion of wax demands a healthy condition of the bee, it indirectly requires some nitrogenous food. ”

“ When combs are filled with honey, they go only on the surface, eating nothing but the sealing of the cells; seldom penetrating to the centre, without an empty cell to give the chance. Disgusting as they seem to be, they dislike being daubed with honey. Wax, and not honey, is their food. ”

“ Wax is a very precious material, and the beautiful hexagonal structure of the bee-comb is intended for the purpose of combining the greatest amount of storing space with the least expenditure of material. The plates of wax of which the cells are composed are so thin that their edges would break down even under the feet of the bees as they passed over it, and accordingly the bees strengthen the edges of the cells with propolis, as any one may see by examining a piece of bee-comb. The propolis is of a darker colour than the wax, and has a peculiar varnish-like appearance. ”

“ When the cells, intended for holding the winter’s provision, are filled, they are always closed with waxen lids, and never re-opened till the whole of the honey in the unfilled cells has been expended. The waxen lids are thus formed;—The bees first construct a ring of wax within the verge of the cell, to which other rings are successively added, till the aperture of the cell is finally closed with a lid composed of concentric circles. ”

“ In another experiment, after supplying a hive deprived of a queen with brood and pollen, we saw the small bees quickly occupied in nutrition of the larvæ, while those of the wax working class neglected them. Small bees also produce wax, but in a very inferior quantity to what is elaborated by the real wax workers. ”

“ Watch for a little while and you will soon see one bee come out from among its companions and settle on the top of the inside of the hive, turning herself round and round, so as to push the other bees back, and to make a space in which she can work. Then she will begin to pick at the under part of her body with her fore-legs, and will bring a scale of wax from a curious sort of pocket under her abdomen. ”

“ Because the leaves and stem, when bruised, and boiled in water, yield wax, which concretes on cooling. Mr. Brande observes, "the glossy varnish upon the upper surface of many trees is of a similar nature; and though there are shades of difference, these varieties of wax possess the essential properties of that formed by the bee: indeed, it was formerly supposed that bees merely collected the wax already formed by the vegetable: but Huber's experiments show, that the insect has the power of transmuting sugar into wax, and that this is in fact a secretion." ”

“ The black wax is the production of a small bee very little larger than an ant, which builds its house in the ground. The white wax is deposited in the branches of a small tree, which are hollow, and divided into compartments like the joints of a cane. ”

“ Nearly the whole of the wax employed in Europe, and the greater part of that consumed in America, is the produce of the common hive bee, but in the latter country the produce of wild bees is also extensively used. Wax forms an important branch of trade and commerce in all those countries where the Roman Catholic religion prevails, being extensively used in the festivals and rites of that church. ”

“ A little should be given the first night even in fine weather. Of course, the first work of the bees is to build themselves combs, and these combs being produced by the secretion of wax from honey, a great drain upon their resources immediately begins, and any little outlay at this juncture is therefore abundantly compensated. ”