Beeswax - natures gift

“If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.” Albert Einstein

Why beeswax?

Well I am fairly biased coming from a beekeeping family that has always had access to beeswax, either using the premium capping’s harvested during the honey season, or the darker wax re-cycled during the process of giving the bees fresh new foundation in return for all their hard work.

But on to how I really started out, and how I have come to this point in time.

A few school years washing dishes at my local pub to keep me solvent proved that although I worked hard for my money, the anti social hours and wrinkled hands were not something that I really wanted to plan as a long term solution to making my way in life.

Parents - a very important part in my journey, lots of wise words and support, it’s been a journey of learning and mistakes, lots of ‘I told you so’, lots of ‘I sound like my own parents’ but as the saying goes - dreams don’t work unless you do.

My dream - I think I am still dreaming of what I would like Beeswax Alchemy to be, and know that I am light years of fulfilling everything that beeswax can provide for us.

I love all the special things in life, but the more I work with my family and the bees the more I realise that I need to be part of the re-set button in our environmental impact on our planet.

I know there are many people that believe we shouldn’t use beeswax, and that farming bees is unnatural. This may well be the case, but as a human race we have evolved to farm livestock, and in doing so the livestock survives. We need our pollinators, and without the commercial beekeepers and hobby beekeepers our wild honeybees could be critically endangered. The return for our endeavours, is carefully harvested honey and a re-cycling of beeswax - the beeswax is a product that is not re-used by the bees and left to nature would be left to the wax moth to de-stash.

I hear shouts of why not vegetable wax - soya/rapeseed/palm - I think the world has woken to the palm oil crisis, but the reality is the soya bean crisis (yes there is one) is yet to hit the headlines.

Soy wax is often described as an ‘eco’ wax - just saying eco doesn’t do it when it comes to soy. A soy plant is natural but soy wax is not. To obtain wax the husk has to be subject of several chemical processes to obtain the wax and often blended with other waxes to help burn efficiently.

The impacts of soy are huge : Deforestation, land and habitat loss, carbon capture and sequestration oil erosion, water availability, modern farming and agrochemicals and monocultures - soy is wind pollinated so gives nothing to the pollinators and can be heavily treated with pesticides contributing to the decline of our pollinators.

Rapeseed is considered to be one of the more environmental new waxes on the block, but again, I’m yet to be convinced as to the credentials of this wax until such time as the production of rapeseed is completed without the uses of neonicotinoids.

In reality paraffin wax could be considered to have better credentials than some waxes when used for candles, but one thing you cannot ignore is the toxicity of burning paraffin, especially in confined spaces.

So back to beeswax - please join me on my beeswax journey, where I will be making my pure 100% beeswax candles, beeswax polishes, beeswax board butters and more.

Beeswax candles may seem more expensive than other wax candles, but when you choose a pure beeswax candle you are buying into a craft that is old as nature itself, buying into a non-toxic product, and giving back to the beekeeping communities.

From beeswax to honey - one doesn’t happen without the other. It’s part of the harvest from Beeswax Alchemy.

To keep up to date with my products and harvest please follow me on my facebook and instagram, and any questions along the way do please ask.