From Flower to Flame

(Or How Beeswax Candles are made from Flowers)

This is our Honeybee Waxmaking Pictorial showing how beeswax candles are created.   It will show every step in the honeybees beeswax making process.

Honeybee on a dandelion	Fruit Trees in bloom	Field of dandelions

 The honeybees harvest nectar from flowers, return to the hive with this sweet floral essesence and concentrate it into honey.

The Honeybees consumes the honey and with their wax glands on the sides of their bodies they transform the honey into wax scales. (Image is from Dr. Zachary Huang at MSU)

Workers around 6-12 days old can produce wax scales in their four pairs of wax glands. The glands are concealed between the inter-segmental membranes, but the wax scales produced can be seen, usually even with naked eyes. The scales are thin and quite clear. After workers chew them up and add saliva, it becomes more whitish.

These wax scales are used by the honeybees to make honeycombs to store their honey in.

The beekeepers harvest this honey and during the extracting process the cappings (the ends of the hexagonal cells) are cut or scraped off allowing the honey to come out.

These cappings are melted, cleaned from debris and formed into bulk beeswax.