It was not my intention to start with blogging about bees wax as an ingredient in my products, but it seems very appropriate since we harvested honey this week, and I am now cleaning the bees wax so that it can be used for making balms. Up to this point I have been purchasing the bees wax that I use in my balms, but now I am excited to say that I will transition to using our own wax when it is available.

Question: Is bees wax a natural product?

Answer:  Absolutely! It doesn’t get more natural. I would not call it organic because I could not guarantee that my bees have not been foraging in a neighbors field that has been sprayed with round up, unless of course, I owned 3 square miles or more around each hive that I could assure has in no way been treated with chemicals.  I would, however, consider bees wax as natural as the air we breath.

Next question – can you eat bees wax?

Answer: Yes!! It use to be natural to buy honey that was still in the comb and it would be eaten comb and all. Now days honey in the comb is more of a specialty item, but that is certainly one way to assure that you are getting raw honey. Below is a link for just one of many articles out there about eating honey comb.

http://honeycombs.blogspot.com/2010/10/is-honeycomb-edible.html

In making my products I use bees wax as a binding and thickening agent. The higher the percentage of bees wax in a product the more solid the product will be. But for more potential benefits of skincare products with bees wax you can check out this article from natural health.

http://naturalhealthezine.com/beeswax-in-skin-care/

Some people use bees wax as an ingredient in their handcrafted soap to make a harder bar of soap, but after experimenting with this in my recipes I did not find it necessary.

Next time I will write about the one ingredient that is in almost every product I make.

Until then I wish you well 🙂