this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] kazerniel@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I never thought about it, but beeswax is kinda disgusting, basically ass-grease :P

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

And honey is more or less vomit if you want to think about like that.

Then again, if you do, remember that your cafe latte is also just boob fat and protein with some bean juice.

[–] kazerniel@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yea, I'm vegan, so I'm mindful of milk and honey (and yes, they're disgusting), just never really thought about what process wax exactly came from.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] psud@aussie.zone 2 points 5 days ago

They probably also hate that animal agriculture is required for permaculture. But they hate a lot, so the song is just a little bit

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 21 points 6 days ago

But is a flake the same as a scale? Bad explanation.

[–] Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.works 14 points 6 days ago

How many bee jackets to make a tube of all natural chap stick?

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

I always though they puked it up

[–] hypna@lemmy.world 162 points 1 week ago (5 children)

How did it never occur to me to ask where bee's wax comes from?

[–] don@lemmy.ca 48 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I mean, it’s right there in the name: beeswax, its own word.

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Well it's not like it's called beeswaxoutoftheiryuckysegmentedbody so we still have some room for imagination duh

[–] SydBa@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago

Bees bodies are beautiful.

[–] villainy@lemmy.world 115 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I don't know what I was expecting exactly but it wasn't little wax scales coming from their abdomen

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 days ago

i think most people at some point hear that honey is basically bee vomit, and thus passively assume wax works the same way. Plus hornets literally chew up wood and spit it out, so that's even more reason to assume bees do something like that.

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 36 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I always kind of hoped they pooped the wax out like spider's silk.

[–] Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world 36 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I assumed it was like cream separating from milk, only wax from honey, but to be fair I have never really thought about it much

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I thought they regurgitated it into the honey combs.

[–] wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

They do, but in order for them to regurgitate, they first must gorge upon it. They eat it, chew it up and spit it out in the shapes necessary (planar, cylindrical, or otherwise).

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[–] Kernal64@sh.itjust.works 80 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I don't know why, but this grosses me out so much.

[–] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 4 points 6 days ago

It's setting my trypophobia off for sure.

[–] mr_satan@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Fact check me, but isn't honey just bee vomit? Like it's a little bit digested nectar, no? So knowing that beeswas was is not spit or puke equivalent is less gross to me.

[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world -2 points 6 days ago

Me too, real "Thanks, I hate it"

[–] mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de 95 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Yeah it looks really disgusting, like it's shitting soft teeth

[–] Winter_Oven@piefed.social 62 points 1 week ago (4 children)

oi you didn't need to put that image out there in the world

you could have just kept that to yourself

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[–] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 77 points 1 week ago (8 children)

I knew the bees had to be secreting wax somehow. But I always imagined it to be some kind of secondary oral process. Instead they really use... specialized pores under the segments in their thorax?

Now I don't know which version grosses me out more.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's not like you ain't got glands

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[–] Johandea@feddit.nu 58 points 1 week ago

Wikipedia has some actually useful units regarding it's production.

The new wax is initially clear as glass and colorless, becoming opaque after chewing and being introduced with pollen by the hive worker bees, becoming progressively yellower or browner by incorporation of pollen oils and propolis. The wax scales are about three millimetres across and 0.1 mm thick, and about 1100 are needed to make a gram of wax. Worker bees use the beeswax to build honeycomb cells. For the wax-making bees to secrete wax, the ambient temperature in the hive must be 33 to 36°C.

The book Beeswax Production, Harvesting, Processing and Products suggests one kilogram of beeswax is sufficient to store 22 kg of honey. Another study estimated that one kilogram of wax can store 24 to 30 kg of honey.

[–] don@lemmy.ca 51 points 1 week ago (5 children)

What’ll really bake your noodle later on is the wax is made from honey.

[–] meekah@lemmy.world 63 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I mean, the whole bee is, if you think about it

[–] Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If you want to make a bee from scratch, you must first invent the universe

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[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 21 points 1 week ago

Whoa hey now, you're not going to get me to think that easily

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[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Sort of like how the spit in your mouth, the tears in your eyes, the snot in your nose, etc is primarily made of filtered blood.

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[–] Seaguy05@lemmy.world 33 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Hey man, let them live their lives. Mind your own bees wax... It's not your wax, it's the bees wax.

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[–] RedSnt@feddit.dk 30 points 1 week ago

Apparently a strong hive can have a colony of around 60,000 bees, so 500000/16 = 31250 bees, meaning it's possible, albeit unlikely because not all bees work the same, but it is almost theoretically possible for a big colony to make 2 lbs a day then.

Assuming flakes and scales are the same thing as well.

[–] tidderuuf@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago

He should use Head & Shoulders, will clear that right up.

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago

It looks like one side of this bee is clogged

[–] horseloaf@piefed.zip 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How many flakes in a scale?

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

How about a morsel? A chunk?

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