beeswax

Commercially useful wax secreted by worker honeybees to make the cell walls of the honeycomb. A bee consumes an estimated 6–10 lbs (3–4.5 kg) of honey for each pound of the wax it secretes in small flakes from glands on the underside of its abdomen. After honey removal, the comb is melted to produce the beeswax, which ranges from yellow to almost black. It is used for candles (often for churches), artificial fruit and flowers, modeling wax, and as an ingredient of furniture and floor waxes, leather dressings, waxed paper, lithographic inks, cosmetics, and ointments.