Uses as a product

Uses as a product

Beeswax candles and figures

• Beeswax is mainly used to make honeycomb foundation for reuse by the bees.
• Purified and bleached beeswax is used in the production of food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals:
  • Beeswax is used as a coating for cheese, to protect the food as it ages. As a food additive, beeswax is known as E901 (glazing agent).
  • As a skin care product, a German study found beeswax to be superior to similar "barrier creams" (usually mineral oil based creams, such as petroleum jelly), when used according to its protocol.^[7]
  • Beeswax is an ingredient in moustache wax, as well as hair pomades.
  • Beeswax is an ingredient in surgical bone wax.

• Candles
  • Beeswax candles are preferred in churches because they burn cleanly, with little or no wax dripping down the sides and little visible smoke.^{[citation needed]} Beeswax is also prescribed as the material (or at least a significant part of the material) for the Paschal candle ("Easter Candle") and is recommended for other candles used in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church.^[8]
  • Beeswax is used commercially to make fine candles.

• Although only about 10,000 tons are produced annually, a variety of niche uses exist:^[8]
  • As a component of Shoe polish
  • As a component of Furniture polish, dissolved in turpentine, sometimes blended with linseed or tung oil
  • As a component of modelling waxes.
  • As a blended with pine rosin, beeswax serves as an adhesive to attach reed plates to the structure inside a squeezebox.
  • Used to make Cutler's resin.
  • Used in Eastern Europe in egg decoration. It is used for writing on batik eggs (as in pysanky) and for making beaded eggs.
  • Formerly used in the manufacturing of the cylinders used by the earliest phonographs.
  • Used by percussionists to make a surface on tambourines for thumb rolls