Home Grown Farming .com

2 Responses to what is a beeswax?

1. beeswax is the part of the honey comb that is leftover after the bees have moved on, or in terms of bee keeping, it is the part leftover after the honey is removed. It can be used for many different things, such as candles making and use in lipsticks and lip gloss.

   EDIT:
   and according to wikipedia:
   Western 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. Estimates are that bees fly 150,000 miles to yield one pound of beeswax (530,000 km/kg). 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.

   

   ellen d
   June 9, 2014 at 4:52 am
   Reply

2. Beeswax is a product from a bee hive, specifically the hive of any species of honey bee (the genus Apis). Beeswax is secreted by young honey bees of a certain age in the form of thin scales. The scales are produced by glands of 12 to 17 days old worker bees on the ventral (stomach) surface of the abdomen.

   CHEMICAL COMPOSITION

   Beeswax is a tough wax formed from a mixture of several compounds including:
   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%

   The main components of beeswax are palmitate, palmitoleate, hydroxypalmitate[1] and oleate esters of long-chain (30-32 carbons) aliphatic alcohols, with the ratio of triacontanylpalmitate CH3(CH2)29O-CO-(CH2)14CH3 to cerotic acid[2] CH3(CH2)24COOH, the two principal components, being 6:1.

   Beeswax has a high melting point range, of 62 to 64 °C (144 to 147 °F). It does not boil in air, but continues to heat until it bursts into flame at around 120 °C (250 °F). If beeswax is heated above 85 °C (185 °F) discoloration occurs. Density at 15 °C is 0.958 to 0.970 g/cm³.

   Bee wax 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.

   Hydroxyoctacosanyl hydroxystearate can be used as a beeswax substitute as a consistency regulator and emulsion stabilizer. Japan wax is another substitute.

   USES
   Beeswax is used commercially to make fine candles, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals including bone wax (cosmetics and pharmaceuticals account for 60% of total consumption), in polishing materials (particularly shoe polish), as a component of modelling waxes, and in a variety of other products. It is commonly used during the assembly of pool tables to fill the screw holes and the seams between the slates.Beeswax candles and figures
   Beeswax candles and figures

   

   Jeet .
   June 9, 2014 at 5:36 am
   Reply