What Is Beeswax Used For?
Bees produce beeswax to make the honeycombs inside their beehives. The beeswax is formed into individual cells in which the queen bee lays her eggs. Honey is also stored in the honeycombs. Even though most people don't think about the value of beeswax, it has numerous uses and sells for almost double the price per pound as honey.
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Size
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Using modern beehives, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates beeswax to be produced at a rate of 1.5 to 2 percent of the volume of honey produced. However, in developing nations beekeepers mostly use traditional hives, which produce beeswax at 10 to 15 percent of the weight of the honey. Beeswax is sold for between $4 to $8 per kilogram on the world market. On eBay, 2-ounce blocks of beeswax are sold for approximately $1.75 each (plus an additional $1.74 for shipping and handling). Like honey, beeswax is harvested at the end of each flowering season.
Geography
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France, Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom import the most beeswax. Kenya and Tanzania lead the world in beeswax exports. The European Union (EU) requires honey to be certified free of chemical and antibiotic residues. This requirement helps traditional harvesters and caused the EU to ban honey imported from China in 2002. Beeswax is not affected by the honey ban, however. The EU imported 71 perccent of its beeswax from China in 2003. Zambia and Tanzania are the only African nations that have been able to meet EU import requirements for honey. In 2003, the EU imported two-thirds of the beeswax it used. Tanzania produces 9,200 tons of beeswax annually, valued at $18.4 million.
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Features
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Sixty percent of the beeswax the EU imported in 2003 was in crude form. This means that it was sorted by color before being rendered by melting, filtering and molding into blocks. It is shipped in unwrapped lumps in Hessian bags. It is essential that the refining process avoid letting the beeswax contact metal because it will react adversely with iron and zinc. The only metal containers that are appropriate for beeswax storage and shipment are made of stainless steel.
Significance
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Candles, ointments, medicines, soaps, polishes, lubricants and cosmetics are made with beeswax. Beeswax is also used in wood and leather waterproofing products, as well as for strengthening threads, insulating high-frequency electrical circuits and food processing. Other uses include the artistic processes of lost wax casting and batik.
Considerations
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Beeswax purchasers include some major corporations. Brylcreem used to buy about half of the Tangayika, Tanzania, beeswax crop. Strahl & Pitsch Inc. markets itself as the "leading refiner of beeswax in the United States." Kahl & Co. of Germany calls itself the "only wax refinery that is organic certified to refine organic wax in Europe."
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