Spyke
lemmy.world

How did it never occur to me to ask where bee's wax comes from?

165
donreply
lemmy.ca

I mean, it’s right there in the name: beeswax, its own word.

49
villainyreply
lemmy.world

I don't know what I was expecting exactly but it wasn't little wax scales coming from their abdomen

117
lemmy.world

I assumed it was like cream separating from milk, only wax from honey, but to be fair I have never really thought about it much

38

They do, but in order for them to regurgitate, they first must gorge upon it. They eat it, chew it up and spit it out in the shapes necessary (planar, cylindrical, or otherwise).

5

i think most people at some point hear that honey is basically bee vomit, and thus passively assume wax works the same way. Plus hornets literally chew up wood and spit it out, so that's even more reason to assume bees do something like that.

2
trololololreply
lemmy.world

Well it's not like it's called beeswaxoutoftheiryuckysegmentedbody so we still have some room for imagination duh

8
piefed.social

oi you didn't need to put that image out there in the world

you could have just kept that to yourself

63
Kernal64reply
sh.itjust.works

Nobody needed to share that picture of bees making wax, either. 😩 We've all had our share of trauma from this post.

15

It's basically the same thought that occurred to me, so it wouldn't have been contained.

5

Fact check me, but isn't honey just bee vomit? Like it's a little bit digested nectar, no? So knowing that beeswas was is not spit or puke equivalent is less gross to me.

5

I knew the bees had to be secreting wax somehow. But I always imagined it to be some kind of secondary oral process. Instead they really use... specialized pores under the segments in their thorax?

Now I don't know which version grosses me out more.

78
tomenzggreply
midwest.social

Definitely the latter, for me; something about segmented holes just grosses the absolute Hell out of me.

17

Haha; I think the wool's too fuzzy and not rigid enough to bother me. I've been trying to get more into the fiber arts in the last few years, too, so definitely not a problem that I've noticed.

4

Almost definitely; I don't know if there's a degree that's necessary to qualify as I can still look at it without breaking eye contact (though I hate it). But I have a deep desire to rip that shit up the entire time; deeply repulsive, whatever the reason. Honeycombs don't bother me, though; I dunno.

6

Wikipedia has some actually useful units regarding it's production.

The new wax is initially clear as glass and colorless, becoming opaque after chewing and being introduced with pollen by the hive worker bees, becoming progressively yellower or browner by incorporation of pollen oils and propolis. The wax scales are about three millimetres across and 0.1 mm thick, and about 1100 are needed to make a gram of wax. Worker bees use the beeswax to build honeycomb cells. For the wax-making bees to secrete wax, the ambient temperature in the hive must be 33 to 36°C.

The book Beeswax Production, Harvesting, Processing and Products suggests one kilogram of beeswax is sufficient to store 22 kg of honey. Another study estimated that one kilogram of wax can store 24 to 30 kg of honey.

55
don
lemmy.ca

What’ll really bake your noodle later on is the wax is made from honey.

50
Jimbabwereply
lemmy.world

If you want to make a bee from scratch, you must first invent the universe

27
lemmy.dbzer0.com

Sort of like how the spit in your mouth, the tears in your eyes, the snot in your nose, etc is primarily made of filtered blood.

32
lemmy.world

Hey man, let them live their lives. Mind your own bees wax... It's not your wax, it's the bees wax.

33

Back in my day, minding your own beesness was the bee's knees!

3

Apparently a strong hive can have a colony of around 60,000 bees, so 500000/16 = 31250 bees, meaning it's possible, albeit unlikely because not all bees work the same, but it is almost theoretically possible for a big colony to make 2 lbs a day then.

Assuming flakes and scales are the same thing as well.

29
sobchakreply
programming.dev

TIL beeswax is pretty cheap. I typically use shellac on stuff that is indoor and low wear, Looks like beeswax is cheaper and about as easy to apply.

17
lemmy.world

I never thought about it, but beeswax is kinda disgusting, basically ass-grease :P

18
Dasusreply
lemmy.world

And honey is more or less vomit if you want to think about like that.

Then again, if you do, remember that your cafe latte is also just boob fat and protein with some bean juice.

12
kazernielreply
lemmy.world

Yea, I'm vegan, so I'm mindful of milk and honey (and yes, they're disgusting), just never really thought about what process wax exactly came from.

2

They probably also hate that animal agriculture is required for permaculture. But they hate a lot, so the song is just a little bit

2

Any female bee in the hive will go through all the jobs available depending on their age. The bees you see flying around are at the end of the life cycle. Bees make wax from days 12 to 18. By the time they go foraging they are 21+ days old and no longer have the fuzziness of youth.

16