Carefullly rolled sheets of rendered but direct from the beehive wax are all that it takes to make a beeswax pillar candle, approx 2″ wide and available in different lengths and colours.
Keeping bees has been one of mankind’s occupations since the foundations of our civilisation many thousands of years ago. In the UK there are about 30,000 beekeepers and over 250 different bee species. As well as wax of course, we benefit from that most amazing food, honey. At Abrahams Store, while we don’t keep bees, we do keep products that the bees make for us.
You can see our honey collection, here. As well as this beeswax taper candle, you can see the range of natural beeswax products available at Abrahams Store, here.
Save British bees – buy some honey
Future of bees in the UK is of great concern to us. Josie fancies becoming a beekeeper like Sherlock Holmes, when she retires. Did you know that the bee population declined steeply in the 1990s due to the Varroa mite. Beekeepers are helping the recovery. The number of keepers has doubled since 2008 and bee colonies have risen by around 70% to stand at about 130,000.
The flavour of honey varies depending on the plants that the bees use as well as the geography of where the colony is. The flavour of the honey also depends on the time of year when the bees make it. That’s why be have spring, summer and autumn honey available at Abrahams Store. In buying our honey you support the Black Bee or Apis Mellifera Mellifera, the UK’s only native honey bee. You can learn more about the Black Bee here.
In the Cuevas de la Araña, outside of Valencia in Spain you can find paintings of people gathering honey that are thought to be about 8000 years old. Mankind also found that the wax was very useful too. Mentioned elsewhere on this website, Odysseus crew’s ears were plugged with wax when he wanted to listen to the Sirens. Beeswax is also useful for other purposes. If your drawers are sticking a bit of wax rubbed into the sliders work a treat. With a mixture of wax and some oil and coat some cotton with it, you have non-plastic cling film.
Eating beeswax ?
How about some food featuring beeswax (which is perfectly safely edible). Hailing form the Bordeaux area of France, Canelés are crispy custard pastries. The wax is mixed with butter to give a non stick coating in the baking tin and leaves the tart with a glazed look. Fancy giveing them a try ? There is a recipe here.
Making beeswax candles is quite easy and there’s a video on the subject by John the Bee Man here. However if you’re thinking of doing it yourself, be warned, wasps are always interested too!
