Last Updated on November 9, 2023 by Fasting Planet
You’re much more familiar with another product made from bees–honey–than you are beeswax. As a vegan, you know better than to eat honey, but since beeswax isn’t commonly consumed, you figure you don’t have to worry about it as much. Still, you have to know, is beeswax vegan?
Beeswax, being a source of honey and a waxy residue used in many applications, is an animal byproduct and thus not vegan. However, for vegetarians who don’t mind consuming honey, beeswax products are allowable.
In this article, you’ll learn what beeswax is, how it’s made, what it’s used for, and how to avoid it as a vegan. Beeswax is in many more products than you might have assumed, so you’re definitely not going to want to miss this!
What Is Beeswax?
Maybe as a kid you’ve said, “none of your beeswax” rather than “none of your business,” but what is beeswax? It’s a real product that Apis genus honeybees make.
Worker bees in particular produce beeswax. Mirror glands within their sternites or segmented ventral portions contain upwards of eight glands capable of releasing the wax. In younger worker bees, their glands are larger, so they can produce more beeswax than older bees. Those worker bees that have strenuous schedules may also have a decline in wax production regardless of age.
When the worker bee first releases beeswax, it has no color nor texture. You can see right through it. The wax won’t stay that way for long though. As the worker bee chews on it, the wax goes from being translucent to opaque. Slowly, a color forms. It’s not the chewing that does this, but rather, the introduction of color from propolis and pollen oils.
Propolis is a type of bee glue that’s made of beeswax, saliva, and exudate. Exudate comes from trees in the forms of resin, latex, gums, and saps, even nectar. The propolis will harden if the temperature is lower than 68 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s even brittle at that point. If it’s warmer, propolis becomes more liquid-like and sticky.
Each beeswax scale measures 0.1 millimeters thick and 0.12 inches wide. To produce a gram of commercially-used wax, 1,100 scales are necessary. As the worker bees accumulate more beeswax, they use it to construct honeycomb cells. Temperatures in the hive have to be between 91 and 97 degrees or wax secretions will slow. That means the propolis will be sticky.
Beeswax is harvested by beekeepers to remove the honey within. Uncapping the honeycombs can release the honey, but not always. The beekeeper might have to use tools like a brace comb or burr comb to get the honey free. Natural honey may be browner or yellower than what you’re used to, but that’s dependent on the flowers the bees used to make the honey, the region in the world the honey is collected in, and the purity of the honey.
Besides honey, beeswax contains the following:
- Free fatty alcohols – 1 percent
- Acid esters – 1 percent
- Acid polyesters – 2 percent
- Triesters – 3 percent
- Unidentified ingredients – 6 percent
- Hydroxy polyesters – 8 percent
- Free fatty acids – 12 percent
- Diesters – 14 percent
- Hydrocarbons – 14 percent
- Monoesters – 35 percent
Is Beeswax Vegan?
Most people don’t eat beeswax itself, but rather, the entire honeycomb. That honeycomb would include honey–hence the name honeycomb–which makes it rather clear that beeswax is not vegan.
Veganism though is not solely a diet, but a lifestyle. If you choose to become a vegan, it’s because you have compassion and care for the wellbeing of animals all over the world. You know that most animals that end up on grocery store shelves as beef, ham, turkey, and chicken live in cruel conditions before they’re mercilessly murdered.
Thus, you’ve decided to amend your lifestyle choices so they too are in-tune with your dietary decisions. You avoid animal byproducts in the everyday items you use as well as the food you eat.
That brings us to beeswax. Vegans don’t eat honey because the practice of harvesting honey is unkind to bees. Beekeepers keep bees in conditions the bees might not necessarily choose for themselves. Each time the beekeeper goes into the hive to harvest honey, the bees are disturbed. Some are even killed, which may be unavoidable. Other bees can fly free when the beekeeper opens the door to the beehive.
The fewer worker bees in the colony, the harder that the other bees have to work to make up for the absence of one or several.
What’s worse is this. To access the boxes in a beekeeper’s hive, the beekeeper will smoke the hive. Since the bees don’t know what’s happening, they assume their hive is on fire and respond accordingly. The bees will begin eating as much honey as possible since they believe they won’t be able to stay where they are.
Now the bees have wasted their honey for no reason, as there is no fire and thus no threat to their lives. The bees have to work harder to collect honey all over again, which unnecessarily strains the colony for a second time.
To collect beeswax, honey extraction is usually a part of the process. Thus, if you don’t eat honey or use honey byproducts as a vegan, you should be staunchly against beeswax as well.
What Is Beeswax Used for?
It’s a lot easier to avoid honey than it is beeswax though. That’s because beeswax appears in so many products due to its versatile properties. Let’s talk about what you’ll discover beeswax so you can choose vegan-safe products.
Oil Spill Remediation
Here’s one usage of beeswax that you may be okay with as a vegan. When oil spills unfortunately happen–which is all too common these days–beeswax is one ingredient in what’s known as Petroleum Remediation Product or PRP. The other ingredients are natural waxes and soy wax. PRP is an absorbent product that can suck up the oil from the ocean and clean up the mess faster.
Hair Wax
This one makes sense. Rosin, which is a pine stump residue, is combined with beeswax to make hair pomades. For the fellas, moustache and other facial hair pomades include the same ingredients.
Moisturizers and Salves
Most moisturizers are filled with products like petrolatum, mineral oil, lanolin, proteins, propylene glycol, glycerine, dimethicone, hyaluronic acid, and beeswax. The same goes for salves, so make sure you skip these products.
Hand Lotions and Creams
When used in hand creams or lotions, beeswax makes a protective layer over your skin. In addition, beeswax can exfoliate and work as a humectant to bring in moisture. You can see why commercial manufacturers use it, but you should not.
Lip Gloss and Lip Balm
That lip gloss and lip balm you use exists in part thanks to beeswax. The emulsifiers in the wax hold onto moisture so your lips don’t feel chapped. Brands like Life Not Labs and Burt’s Bees are two lip balm producers that rely especially on beeswax, but don’t be fooled. The wax is in other lip balms and glosses as well.
Petroleum Jelly
The semi-firm texture of petroleum jelly is attributed to beeswax and other waxes like it. Mineral oils are the other part of the puzzle that can lend petroleum jelly the namesake jelly-like feel.
Makeup
From eyeliner to blush, eye shadow, and just about any makeup product on pharmacy store shelves, beeswax is in most of them. Ladies, this will take some very conscientious shopping on your part to find beeswax-free makeup!
Cheese Coating
You don’t eat cheese as a vegan anyway, and it’s a good thing you don’t. Beeswax is used as a cheese coating that locks out air so the cheese can’t get moldy before it reaches store shelves. Yes, that’s gross, but it’s still part of the cheese production process.
E901
The food additive known as E901 is part beeswax. You’ll see this additive used as a glazing agent on fruits so they don’t get dinged on the way to the grocery store. Vegans will have to ask some hard questions of their favorite grocer to determine which fruits are safe to eat versus those that are not.
Legal Seals
Whenever you come across legal seals, such as at a lawyer’s office or even on royal decrees, you can bet that the seal is made from beeswax and other waxes. That’s also the case of stamp imprimaturs offered by colleges and universities when you graduate.
Instruments
Here’s a place where we’re sure you didn’t expect to find beeswax, but yes, instruments use the wax too. Percussionists will apply beeswax to their tambourines so they can more easily do thumb rolls.
Cutler’s Resin
Cutler’s resin is an adhesive that’s made from animal dung, sawdust, charcoal, carnauba wax, beeswax, and pine pitch. Not all Cutler’s resin is necessarily non-vegan; some waxes use only carnauba wax instead of beeswax.
Surfboard Wax
To get that shiny sheen on a surfboard so it looks appealing at the surf store, manufacturers will apply a wax that is in part made from beeswax.
Furniture and Shoe Polish
Here’s another one that shouldn’t surprise you by now. Polishing products like furniture polish for wood or shoe polish for a nice pair of leather loafers both tend to include beeswax and other waxes in the ingredients list.
Surgical Bone Wax
In the medical world, beeswax makes an appearance as well. It’s used in surgical bone wax, which prevents bleeding around the bone when a patient undergoes surgery. Beeswax is the primary ingredient; bone wax also includes petroleum jelly or paraffin to make the wax softer.
Conclusion
Beeswax is an animal byproduct that’s sourced from worker bees in their hives. The wax contains honey. In all sorts of industries, beeswax is a top ingredient. That includes surgical bone wax to cleaning up oil spills to makeup, cheese coatings, skincare products, and furniture polish. Vegans must seek versions of these everyday products that are beeswax-free, even though that isn’t always easy. Good luck!