'Honey, I polished the sideboard.´
, by Sarah Frame, 1 min reading time
Many people who love their wooden furniture reach for the beeswax.
You can rub it onto the wood using a soft cloth and it doesn’t require any special tools or extensive preparation. It’s a doddle to buff, leaving a smooth finish that feels pleasant to the touch. And it smells gorgeous.
It brings out the grain of the wood and it creates a protective surface. Particularly useful to avoid that ring of red wine.
But where does beeswax come from?
The clue’s in the title. But we did a bit of research and found some interesting facts that were certainly new to us.
Apparently, the process begins when worker bees secrete beeswax from glands on the underside of their abdomens. And they do this when 12-18 days old, which is pretty young to start work.
These glands convert the sugars from honey into small, waxy flakes. The bees then chew these flakes, mixing them with their saliva to soften and shape the wax into the honeycomb structure we often associate with hives. This honeycomb serves as the storage space for honey, pollen and baby bees.
The honeycomb’s hexagonal shape is a marvel of engineering. Not only is it incredibly efficient in terms of space, but it also uses the least amount of wax to hold the maximum amount of honey. When the bees leave the honeycombs, they are harvested for their wax.
Humans have been harvesting and using beeswax for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians, for example, used it in embalming processes and to create wax figures. The Greeks and Romans also valued beeswax, using it in medicine, for making writing tablets, and as a critical ingredient in the first candles.
But perhaps the best thing about beeswax is that it’s a naturally occurring product when sold in its purest form.