Beeswax

We produce our own wax for nearly 20 years and don’y buy any beeswax from anywhere, to ensure maximum purity. Usually we do not have enough wax to sell as we need most of it to go back into our hives as beeswax foundation. If we’ve got beeswax available, there are three quality grades. We offer our purest grade, virgin cappings wax, if available. This can be used for cremes and other products that require purity from contaminants like pesticides or adulteration with mineral oil based products.

Beeswax is the main nest building material for rearing brood and honey storage. It takes approximately 7lb of honey to produce 1lb of Beeswax, and it’s estimated that around 30 Million flower visits are necessary. Within the hexagonal cells they manage to safely pack 2 KG of honey in only 40 grams of Beeswax. The beekeeper provides a sheet of beeswax to give the bees a starting point to build their comb. Due to the scarcity and price of pure beeswax, over recent years, we have been confronted with adulterated beeswax, mixed with other artificial heavy oil based wax.

Consequently it is impossible to know what level of purity beeswax has without expensive analysis performed in a laboratory see study in the link.

To quote the study liked; “At European level, the most recent study [28] using an advanced method of detection of adulteration (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) coupled with Attenuated Total Reflectance (ATR) accessory, so-called FTIR-ATR spectroscopy) revealed that, among 137 samples of comb foundation or wax blocks originating from 15 different countries sampled between 2016 and 2018, 59.9% were adulterated by paraffin and/or stearin.”
Adulteration of beeswax: A first nationwide survey from Belgium

It would be nice to be able to write about uses and health benefits of beeswax, without mentioning the downsides. The sad truth is nearly 60% (possibly even more now) of beeswax is not pure and not fit for the bees let alone human consumption. Whether you buy honeycomb to eat, or beeswax for cosmetic products, it is good to be sure and ask questions. There are shops who provide laboratory test certificates with the wax they sell. As soon as adulterated wax is introduced into the wax circle of the hive it would take years or a radical wax exchange, to clear it out again. We maintain our own closed wax production cycle for nearly 20 years and won’t by any beeswax from anywhere, to ensure it’s all clean and the honey unspoiled.