Beeswax

Beeswax is a natural wax produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. It is mainly esters of fatty acids and various long chain alcohols. Typically, for a honey bee keeper, 10 pounds of honey yields 1 pound of wax.[1]

Contents

Production

The wax is formed by worker bees (the females), who secrete it from eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the sternites (the ventral shield or plate of each segment of the body) on abdominal segments 4 to 7. The size of these wax glands depends on the age of the worker and after daily flights begin these glands gradually atrophy. The new wax scales are initially glass-clear and colorless (see illustration), becoming opaque after mastication by the worker bee. The wax of honeycomb is nearly white, but becomes progressively more yellow or brown by incorporation of pollen oils and propolis. The wax scales are about 3 millimetres (0.12 in) across and 0.1 millimetres (0.0039 in) thick, and about 1100 are required to make a gram of wax.[2]

Honey bees use the beeswax to build honeycomb cells in which their young are raised and honey and pollen are stored. For the wax-making bees to secrete wax, the ambient temperature in the hive has to be 33 to 36 °C (91 to 97 °F). To produce their wax, bees must consume about eight times as much honey by mass. It is estimated that bees fly 150,000 miles, roughly six times around the earth, to yield one pound of beeswax (530,000 km/kg).

Processing

When beekeepers extract the honey, they cut off the wax caps from each honeycomb cell with an uncapping knife or machine. Its color varies from nearly white to brownish, but most often a shade of yellow, depending on purity and the type of flowers gathered by the bees. Wax from the brood comb of the honey bee hive tends to be darker than wax from the honeycomb. Impurities accumulate more quickly in the brood comb. Due to the impurities, the wax has to be rendered before further use. The leftovers are called slumgum.

The wax may further be clarified by heating in water. As with petroleum waxes, it may be softened by dilution with vegetable oil to make it more workable at room temperature.

Physical characteristics

Beeswax is a tough wax formed from a mixture of several compounds.

Wax Content Type Percent
hydrocarbons 14%
monoesters 35%
diesters 14%
triesters 3%
hydroxy monoesters 4%
hydroxy polyesters 8%
acid esters 1%
acid polyesters 2%
free acids 12%
free alcohols 1%
unidentified 6%

An approximate chemical formula for beeswax is C15H31COOC30H61.[3] Its main components are palmitate, palmitoleate, hydroxypalmitate[4] and oleate esters of long-chain (30-32 carbons) aliphatic alcohols, with the ratio of triacontanyl palmitate CH3(CH2)29O-CO-(CH2)14CH3 to cerotic acid[5] CH3(CH2)24COOH, the two principal components, being 6:1. Beeswax can be classified generally into European and Oriental types. The ratio of saponification value is lower (3-5) for European beeswax, and higher (8-9) for Oriental types.

Beeswax has a high melting point range, of 62 to 64 °C (144 to 147 °F). If beeswax is heated above 85 °C (185 °F) discoloration occurs. The flash point of beeswax is 204.4 °C (399.9 °F).[6] Density at 15 °C is 0.958 to 0.970 g/cm³.

Natural beeswax (quoting Thorpe 1916 p737)[7]: When cold it is brittle; at ordinary temperatures it is tenacious; its fracture is dry and granular. The sp. gr. at 15° is from 0.958 to 0.975, that of melted wax at 98° - 99° compared with water at 15.5° is 0.822. It softens when held in the hand, and melts at 62° - 66°; it solidifies at 60.5° -63°.

Uses as a product

Historical uses

Beeswax was ancient man's first plastic[11] and for thousands of years had wide variety of uses, including:

See also

Notes

  1. ^ http://www.alfafarmers.org/commodities/bee_honey.phtml
  2. ^ R.H.Brown (1981) Beeswax (2nd edition) Bee Books New and Old, Burrowbridge, Somerset UK. ISBN 0 905652 150
  3. ^ Umney, Nick; Shayne Rivers (2003). Conservation of furniture. Butterworth-Heinemann. pp. 164. 
  4. ^ http://www.lipidlibrary.co.uk/Lipids/fa_oxy/file.pdf
  5. ^ http://www.lipidmaps.org/data/get_lm_lipids_dbgif.php?LM_ID=LMFA01010026
  6. ^ "MSDS for beeswax". https://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/02556.htm. . No reported autoignition temperature has been reported
  7. ^ A Dictionary of Applied Chemistry, Vol. 5. Sir Edward Thorpe. Revised and enlarged edition. Longmans, Green, and Co., London, 1916. "Waxes, Animal and vegetable. Beeswax"
  8. ^ Peter J. Frosch, Detlef Peiler, Veit Grunert, Beate Grunenberg (July 2003). "Wirksamkeit von Hautschutzprodukten im Vergleich zu Hautpflegeprodukten bei Zahntechnikern - eine kontrollierte Feldstudie. Efficacy of barrier creams in comparison to skin care products in dental laboratory technicians - a controlled trial." (in German). Journal der Deutschen Dermatologischen Gesellschaft (Blackwell Synergy) 1 (7): 547–557. doi:10.1046/j.1439-0353.2003.03701.x. PMID 16295040. http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1439-0353.2003.03701.x. Retrieved 1/12/2008. "

    CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrate that the use of after work moisturizers is highly beneficial and under the chosen study conditions even superior to barrier creams applied at work. This approach is more practical for many professions and may effectively reduce the frequency of irritant contact dermatitis.

    " 
  9. ^ 'Altar Candles", 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia
  10. ^ Uwe Wolfmeier, Hans Schmidt, Franz-Leo Heinrichs, Georg Michalczyk, Wolfgang Payer, Wolfram Dietsche, Klaus Boehlke, Gerd Hohner, Josef Wildgruber "Waxes" in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2002. doi:10.1002/14356007.a28_103.
  11. ^ Along with other natural polymers such as gutta-percha, horn, tortoiseshell and shellac,
  12. ^ LOK Congdon (1985) Water-Casting Concave-Convex Wax Models for Cire Perdue Bronze Mirrors. American Journal of Archaeology, 89, 511-515
  13. ^ Egyptology online
  14. ^ Ormeling, F. J. 1956. The Timor problem: a geographical interpretation of an underdeveloped island. Groningen and The Hague: J. B. Wolters and Martinus Nijhoff.

References