Beeswax - Still Useful After 8 000 Years
Long before we had plastic, paraffin, silicone or a cupboard full of products promising to solve every conceivable problem, we had beeswax.
And we used it.
Evidence of beeswax has been found in Neolithic pottery dating back roughly 8,500 years. Which means people were making use of what bees produced before written history, before the wheel reached much of Europe and long before anyone could pop down to the hardware store for a tin of something more convenient.
Clearly, they were onto something.
So, what exactly is beeswax?
Beeswax is made by worker honeybees.
Young worker bees have special glands on the underside of their abdomens that produce tiny scales of wax. The bees manipulate these scales with their legs and mouths, softening and shaping the wax to build the honeycomb inside the hive.
That familiar honeycomb isn't there for decoration. It provides the structure in which the colony raises young and stores pollen and honey.
For something made by a creature weighing around a tenth of a gram, it is impressive engineering.
Humans found plenty to do with it
Once people discovered beeswax, we became remarkably inventive.
Its ability to repel water and form a protective coating made it useful for sealing and waterproofing. It was used to protect wood and leather and, of course, to make candles.
Artists used it too.
The ancient technique of encaustic painting involved mixing pigments with heated beeswax. Beeswax also became important in lost-wax casting, where an object is first modelled in wax before being used to create a mould for casting metal — a method that is still used today.
Across different civilisations and centuries, beeswax found its way into medicines, cosmetics, polishes, art, household jobs and craftsmanship.
There wasn't a marketing department involved.
It was useful.
And we're still using it
That's perhaps the most interesting part.
We have had thousands of years to come up with replacements — and we certainly have. Yet beeswax hasn't disappeared.
It is still used in lip balms, creams and salves. You'll find it in furniture and leather care, candles, art materials, protective coatings and reusable food wraps.
Part of its usefulness comes from a rather handy combination of properties. Beeswax is solid at normal room temperature but softens when heated. It is water-resistant and can create a protective coating. Mixed with oils and other ingredients, it can also give products structure and consistency.
The technology around us has changed beyond recognition.
The beeswax hasn't needed to.
Which brings us back to the bees
It's easy to think about bees in terms of honey.
But honey is only one part of what happens inside a hive, and the things we take from it are only one part of what bees contribute to the world outside it.
Bees are pollinators.
As they move between flowers collecting nectar and pollen, they transfer pollen between plants, allowing many plants to reproduce. That matters to wild plants, ecosystems and agriculture.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, around three-quarters of the world's crop types depend, at least partly, on animal pollination.
Not entirely on honeybees, importantly. The world's pollinators include wild bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, birds, bats and many others.
But bees are a very important part of that picture.
And they face pressures from habitat loss, pesticides, disease, parasites, climate change and reduced access to diverse flowering plants.
Looking after bees doesn't necessarily require owning a hive or becoming an amateur beekeeper.
Growing bee-friendly plants, allowing a little more diversity into our gardens, avoiding unnecessary pesticide use and supporting responsible beekeeping all have a part to play.
8,000 years later...
There is something rather wonderful about an ingredient surviving that long.
Civilisations have risen and fallen. We've gone from clay pots to smartphones. We've invented plastics, synthetic waxes and materials a Neolithic human couldn't possibly have imagined.
And we're still using beeswax.
For more than 8,000 years, we've found it useful.
The bees have been doing their bit for considerably longer.
Looking after them seems a fair exchange.