Inside the Hive: How Honeybees Make Honey & Beeswax

The Candle Library · A closer look at the hive

A spoonful of honey and a beeswax candle begin in the same busy place. But they take two wonderfully different routes to get there.

Honeybees turn nectar into food for their colony. Worker bees also produce wax with their own bodies, then shape it into the comb where the colony raises young and stores supplies. Look inside a hive and you are seeing a nursery, a pantry and a building site, all sharing the same walls.

Meet the colony: who does what?

A honeybee colony usually includes one egg-laying queen, thousands of female workers and, seasonally, male bees called drones. Their roles fit together, but the queen is not a little manager handing out daily assignments.

• The queen: lays the eggs that keep the colony growing.
• The workers: feed developing bees, clean cells, build comb, handle food, guard the entrance and forage. Their work changes with age and the colony's needs.
• The drones: have a reproductive role, mating with queens from other colonies. They do not gather nectar or build wax comb.

The honeybee you notice visiting a flower is a worker on a foraging trip. Before that outdoor work, she may have spent time caring for the next generation inside the hive.

A honeybee's life begins in a wax cell

Like butterflies, honeybees go through four distinct stages. A worker typically takes about 21 days from egg to emerging adult. That is her development time, not her whole lifespan.

Queens emerge sooner, typically after about 16 days; drones take about 24. These are approximate egg-to-emergence timings, not identical schedules for every bee.

How do bees make honey?

Follow one worker out to a flower. She can collect two different resources: nectar, a sugary liquid, and pollen, which supplies protein and other nutrients. They travel home differently.

1. Collect the nectar. A forager takes nectar from flowers and carries it in her honey stomach, also called the crop.
2. Pass it along. Back at the hive, other workers receive the nectar. Enzymes added during processing help change its sugars.
3. Remove much of the water. Workers handle and spread the nectar, while air movement through the hive helps moisture evaporate. Wing fanning contributes to that airflow.
4. Store the finished food. Once sufficiently concentrated, honey is stored in comb cells, which bees seal with thin wax caps.

How do bees make beeswax?

Here is the surprising part: bees do not collect ready-made wax from flowers. Worker honeybees produce it themselves.

Eight wax-producing glands on the underside of a worker's abdomen release material that forms tiny scales. The bees work these scales, joining and shaping the wax into comb.

Freshly produced wax is very pale. As it is used in the hive and comes into contact with materials such as pollen, its color can change. The golden wax we recognize has a story behind its shade.

Wondering how those shades appear in candles? Explore our guide to white and yellow beeswax.

Honeycomb does more than hold honey

Those closely fitting hexagonal cells serve different purposes. Some hold honey, others store pollen, and others become nursery rooms for developing bees. A frame full of comb is not necessarily a frame full of honey.

From hive to honey jar and beeswax candle

In many managed hives, extra boxes called honey supers give bees space to store surplus honey. Harvesting should leave the colony with the food it needs; how much can be taken depends on the colony and local conditions.

Before extracting honey from a capped frame, a beekeeper removes the thin wax lids. These pieces are called cappings. An extractor can then spin honey from the opened cells while leaving much of the comb intact for reuse.

Collected wax is separated from residual honey and debris, then carefully melted and filtered. Once prepared, it can be poured into blocks or used by makers. This is a separate process from extracting the honey.

To follow prepared wax into its next chapter, visit The Maker’s Studio: how to make beeswax candles.

At Bees Light Candles, that remarkable material becomes 100% beeswax candles handcrafted in Pennsylvania. The hive builds with it first; the candlemaker gives prepared wax a new form.

A few questions worth buzzing about

Do all bees make honey?

This guide follows honeybees. Many other kinds of bees live very different lives. Seeing a bee on a flower does not mean it belongs to a honey-producing hive.

Is beeswax the same thing as honeycomb?

Beeswax is the material. Honeycomb is the structure bees build from it, much as clay is a material and a bowl is something shaped from clay.

Does the queen make the honey and wax?

No. Workers collect and process nectar, produce wax and build comb. The queen's central role is laying eggs.

Why is there a white coating on my beeswax candle?

That may be beeswax bloom, a natural surface change. It is a different subject from fresh wax being pale. Our guide to beeswax bloom explains what you are seeing.

A closer look changes the story

Next time you see a bee on a flower, look for a pollen bundle. When you see honeycomb, notice the open cells and wax lids. And when you light a beeswax candle, remember the small builders that made its material possible.

Curious about the material itself? Why Beeswax compares beeswax, soy and paraffin, with practical questions to help you choose a candle.

Keep exploring

This guide draws on university and extension resources. For a deeper look at the science:

• MAAREC: The Colony and Its Organization — colony roles and development.
• University of Georgia: Honey Bees and Beekeeping — life-cycle timings and honey harvesting.
• Purdue University: The Complex Life of the Honey Bee — foraging, nectar and pollen.
• Southern Cross University: How Do Bees Make Honey? — nectar processing and food storage.
• Kentucky State University: How Beeswax Comb Is Constructed — wax production and comb.
• Utah State University: Processing and Using Beeswax — preparing collected wax.

Original text and photorealistic educational illustrations created for Bees Light Candles. Images are illustrative and do not depict our suppliers or workshop.