Natural Bees Wax

Natural Beeswax comb

I am loving a new approach to promoting natural wax in hives mostly because the bees LOVE it. It is one of the wonders of the world that bees can exude a fatty substance from under their abdomen, chew and mix it and then form beautiful rounds of cells which move into the beautiful hexagon shape. They use their body heat to warm it all to a high temperature to set it in place. Only nurse bees between the age of 2 and 3 weeks take on this task and they can only do it during forage season making it one of the most precious commodities in the nest.

I also love that when they are constructing this amazing comb, they are placing a net of medicinal propolis made from tree resin around each cell of the comb. They know how to do healthcare in their patch! And at the edge of their comb, they create a sharp edge to help reinforce the comb and to act as a communication aid. The bees will put their thorax against this edge and vibrate messages across the comb so all the bees on that comb feel the message. It happens also across the face of the comb when bees hold onto the comb and dance and vibrate. All the bees get to know what the rest of the organism is doing and what messages they are sending.

What a loss there is when beekeepers fashion structured wax foundation sheets and greatly reduce these natural advantages. And added to the distress of recycled wax in foundation is the constant buildup of toxins in the wax. Toxic buildup is higher in wax than in any othe product in the nest and higher even than that carried by bees. Foundation wax tested in Australia shows residue of all sorts of poisons including the byproducts of DDT, with systemic neonicotinoids being the worse, so it is easy to see they can also carry pest and disease residue.
When we manage any hive where bees are using manufactured wax foundation, we aim for wax renewal on the brood area every 3 years so we need to constantly be monitoring and managing this aspect. It is a lot of work and disruptive to the bees but necessary to reduce diseases in a colony. When we first started using natural wax in Warre and Lazutin hives we had followed this thinking by placing a new empty frame at position 1 every year in a Lazutin however, we now understand how the bees manage in their natural environments where they replace their natural comb every 5-7 years. This was so good to learn as it reinforced the practice of minimal disturbance to the brood area. So now we provide a new frame at position 1 every 3 or 4 years.
Yes, we check our brood for disease on a regular basis but we no longer need to disturb the main body of the nest unless we see a concern.
The big bonus to natural comb is very quiet bees that communicate easily on their comb and minimal disturbance in the brood area, that assures the bees we are more respectful of their space and capacity.

Happy Beeing