Commercially useful wax secreted by worker honeybees to make the
cell walls of the honeycomb. A bee consumes an estimated 6–10
lbs (3–4.5 kg) of honey for each pound of the wax it secretes in
small flakes from glands on the underside of its abdomen. After
honey removal, the comb is melted to produce the beeswax, which
ranges from yellow to almost black. It is used for candles
(often for churches), artificial fruit and flowers, modeling
wax, and as an ingredient of furniture and floor waxes, leather
dressings, waxed paper, lithographic inks, cosmetics, and
ointments. Learn more about beeswax with a free trial on
Britannica.com. Beeswax is a natural wax produced in the bee
hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. Beeswax is produced by
young worker bees between 12 and 17 days old in the form of thin
scales secreted by glands on the ventral surface of the abdomen.
Worker bees have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner
sides of the sternites (the ventral shield or plate of each
segment of the body) on abdom