How do bees make wax?

Nurse bees begin to produce wax when they are about one week old. Soon after, their responsibilities shift from tending brood to making wax, ventilating the hive, and building and repairing honeycomb. By the time they are three weeks old, their wax-producing glands are worn out and they are ready to move into their new role as foragers.

A honey bee’s wax-making apparatus is a wonder to behold. Each worker bee has eight smooth surfaces (four on each side), sometimes called “wax mirrors,” that are hidden under plates on her abdomen. Each mirror has pores that ooze fatty liquid wax from a gland below. Over a period of twelve hours, the wax builds up like tree rings and hardens into a tiny translucent scale. When the scales are ready, they are conveniently dispensed from the bee's nether region where a sister bee can grab one, pop it in her mouth, and start chewing it like a big wad of gum.

"May I?"

"Please do!"

This brings us to the next stage of production. As the wax is chewed, it mixes with enzymes in bee saliva and water until it is pliable enough to be shaped and used like clay to build honeycomb. The bee spits out a wad of wax, shoves her head into it, and pats it in place. Then she carefully pulls her head out and smooths the edges to make a honeycomb cell that is just the perfect size for an egg to grow into a larvae, and transform into a worker bee. (Queen-sized cells take a little more work.) 

A single bee can produce eight tiny scales of wax in twelve hours. It takes about 1,000 scales to make a gram of beeswax — which weighs about the same as 1/4 teaspoon of sugar — and about 453,000 scales for a pound of honeycomb.

Bees work around the clock in day and night shifts, and take little catnaps when needed. Sometimes a bee’s coworkers hold her up while she catches a few ZZZs to keep her from falling off the comb. It's all about teamwork in the hive.

Let’s say that a bee joins the maintenance crew when she’s eight days old and works around the clock for twelve days. By the time she’s three weeks old, her wax-making apparatus is kaput and she’s ready to join the foragers. She can tell her manager that she met her goal of 192 scales. At that rate, it will take about 2,359 bees to make a pound of wax.

That sounds about right.