What Is Honeycomb? (Talking Beeswax)

Honeycomb is a wax (beeswax) mass of hexagonal (six-sided) cells built by honey bees with wax secreted from special abdominal glands. Honeycomb is a crucial part of the bees’ nest used to store pollen, nectar, and honey and raise brood.

Honeycomb is also used to provide information within the beehive as it transmits the scent of the queen’s pheromones.

A few words on terminology:

The whole of the bees’ wax structure may be called “honeycomb.” It is also referred to as “comb” or, when empty of stores or brood, “drawn comb.”

Sometimes, honeycomb refers only to the part of the comb that contains honey. When extracted from the hive intact, you may also see it called “comb honey.” “Brood comb” are cells that contain, you guessed it, brood.

How Do Honey Bees Make Wax?

In ancient times, people thought bees collected wax from plants and trees. Later, scientists hypothesized that bees created wax through some transformation of pollen.

In 1792, John Hunter, a Scottish surgeon, determined through observation and experimentation that “wax was not transmuted pollen but was secreted only by worker bees.” (Honeybees and Wax: An Experimental Natural History by H. Randall Hepburn)

Between the ages of 12 and 18 days, worker bees develop wax glands. These glands secrete a liquid that solidifies as wax flakes upon contact with the air. These flakes, or wax scales, are passed to the bee’s mouth and mixed with other secretions making a pliable wax.

Cells with developing brood or completed honey are closed with wax cappings. Hence, the terms capped brood or capped honey.

Beeswax is not “bee poop” or “bee vomit.” A bee’s wax-secreting glands are not part of the bee’s digestive tract.

Building Comb

In an empty space (such as a foundationless frame), wax-producing bees “festoon” in a chain, creating the cells from the top down. This honeycomb is two-sided with a rib down the middle and cells on each side.

On foundation, the honey bee colony draws out wax comb using the embossed foundation as a guide.

Without foundation, the comb is often attached to the sides and the bottom of the frame for stability.

See our articles Beehive Frames And Foundation (A Beginner’s Guide) and Foundationless Frames (Foundationless Beekeeping Basics) for more information.

Generally, the walls of the comb sections will be parallel to each other. Bees leave about 3/8th of an inch (bee space) between each layer section.

Despite efforts to keep the girls on parallel tracks, bees may still go in other directions, building comb in unusual places. This “burr comb” or “cross combing” requires some maintenance work by the beekeeper to keep the hive manageable.

Comb cells may appear flat. But, upon closer inspection, you’ll see they tilt upward at a slight angle to prevent pollen, nectar, and honey from spilling out.

Why Are Honeycomb Cells Hexagonal?

A hexagon is a plane figure with six sides, as the accompanying illustration shows. But why has nature selected the hexagon as the optimal shape for honeycomb?

Bees spend an enormous amount of energy building honeycomb. Bees consume about 5 lbs. (2.27 kg) to make 1 lb. (.45 kg) of wax. They must secrete wax scales, chew them, and heat them to form the comb.

Since building the comb is an expensive undertaking, it is precious to the bees. As a bee, you’d want a cell shape that provides the greatest storage area using the least amount of wax.

The hexagon provides more area relative to its perimeter than circles, squares, or triangles. The following video explains the superiority of the hexagonal shape in detail. Why do bees build hexagonal honeycombs? – Forces of Nature with Brian Cox: Episode 1 – BBC One:

Not only are hexagons the most efficient shape for honeycomb, but they provide strength to the comb. Why Nature Loves Hexagons from It’s Okay To Be Smart:

It is generally accepted that bees build circular or cylindrical cells. These circles then morph into hexagonYetgh physics. Yet, there is some evidence that bee behavior plays a role in the ultimate shaping of the cells. (Source: Nazzi, F. The hexagonal shape of the honeycomb cells depends on the construction behavior of bees. Sci Rep 6, 28341 (2016) doi:10.1038/srep28341)

Honey cells are capped in such a manner that their hexagonal shape may not be obvious. The hexagon is recognizable in capped brood or empty cells.

Exceptions To Hexagonal Cells

A notable exception to the hexagon shape in the honeycomb is the cells designed to raise a queen. The larger size of the queen relative to other bees requires a differently shaped cell.

Queen cells can be supersedure or swarm cells.

Supersedure cells are usually long, peanut-shaped cells hanging on the face of the comb. Bees build them in expectation of replacing the current queen.

Swarm cells tend to form near the bottom of the frame in the form of queen cups. The intent is not to replace the queen. The goal is to make sure there are two queens. One queen leaves with the swarm to form a new colony. The second queen remains behind to continue the existing colony.

Different Sized Hexagonal Cells

Drones (male bees) are larger than worker bees, though not as large as the queen. Cells for raising drones are thus larger than those for workers.

Based on the status of the hive, the colony determines how many drone cells to build. The queen distinguishes the different sizes of the cells. She deposits unfertilized eggs in the drone cells. Fertilized eggs go in the worker cells.

Honeycomb Colors

When first made, beeswax is a translucent white color. It yellows over time.

Brood cells are constantly in use as the colony feeds the brood, and are reused later for new eggs. The gradual buildup of propolis, debris, and recycling turns the wax a dark brown despite the bees’ cleaning efforts. The cappings on these cells tend to mirror the color of the cells themselves.

When bees determine that they’ve converted nectar to honey, they cap the cell to seal it. These cells and their cappings don’t experience the same use as brood cells. They tend to be much whiter than capped brood.

Honeycomb And Beginning Beekeepers

In properly overwintered hives, queens have plenty of existing honeycomb for laying eggs at the first signs of spring.

Beginning beekeepers just starting out don’t have that advantage. Thus, some of our recommendations for beginners.

Get Your First Bees In A Nuc

A nuc (or nucleus colony) is a mini-hive. It usually consists of 5 frames with a queen, bees, and frames with drawn comb. The comb contains brood in various stages of development and some food stores.

If you start with a bee package, you get bees, including a queen, but no comb. Without comb, the queen cannot begin laying eggs immediately. This delays the growth of the population.

A nuc costs more than a package. We recommend you start with one if it fits within your budget.

See What Is A Nuc? for more information.

Use Foundation

We’ve started building some foundationless colonies. However, foundation is easier for beginners. It gives bees a place to start drawing comb immediately. This is especially valuable if you start with a bee package.

Feed Your Bees

When you install your first colonies in early spring, nectar should be flowing. However, while the bees orient themselves to their new location and adapt to a new queen, feed them 1:1 sugar syrup.

See our article What, When & How To Feed Honey Bees for information on making sugar syrup and options for feeding your bees.

Sugar syrup and nectar will stimulate comb building. The more comb they build, the more eggs the queen can lay, and the faster the population will ramp up.

We only feed when it’s necessary. Once you notice that the bees slow their consumption of sugar syrup, it’s time to stop feeding. 

Let them forage for nectar.

Using Honeycomb and Beeswax

Honeycomb wax has a variety of uses outside the hive but can also be reused in the colony.

Reusing Frames With Honeycomb

After uncapping, turning frames at high speed with a centrifugal extractor releases the honey from the comb. The honeycomb stays intact. 

You can save these frames for hives the following year. Not needing to draw new comb saves the bees time and energy and can result in higher or faster honey production.

Empty brood comb in boxes can attract a swarm. Catching swarms is a great way to get free bees to expand your apiary.

See our article What Is A Swarm Trap? for more information.

Raw Honeycomb

Comb with honey can be extracted in its original form, wax and all. It is the ultimate form of raw honey, providing all the health benefits honey has to offer.

See our article What Is Raw Honey? (Besides Delicious) for more information.

Simply cut the raw comb honey out of the frame and store it for future use.

Honeycomb, including the wax, is edible. Be careful, though. Overeating wax can cause stomach obstructions, as described on Healthline.com.

I like to spread it on something hot, like a toasted English muffin, which softens the wax. I also chew it like gum and spit out the wax once I’ve extracted all the honey. Yum!

If you have not cut your own comb (or you do not keep bees), try some comb honey from your local beekeeper. If you don’t have a local source, we suggest the following:

Savannah Bee Pure Raw Acacia Honeycomb

Find it on Amazon

Bees Knees Raw Honeycomb 100% Edible

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Find it on Amazon

Great Bazaar All Natural Turkish Raw Honeycomb

Find it on Amazon

Beeswax Products

If you extract honey using a crush and strain method, you’ll end up with a lot of beeswax after bottling your honey. You can also harvest the beeswax from other frames. 

The list of products made with honeycomb can be quite extensive. A recent study even concluded that when a dressing that included beeswax was applied to second-degree burns, patients experienced reduced pain and shorter hospital visits.

You can learn how to make beeswax products from these two popular books:

Beeswax Alchemy: How to Make Your Own Soap, Candles, Balms, Creams, and Salves from the Hive

Find it on Amazon

Beehive Alchemy: Projects and recipes using honey, beeswax, propolis, and more

Find it on Amazon

Conclusion

Honeycomb is a critical component of a honey bee nest that you cannot buy. It’s up to you, as a beekeeper, to provide an environment where the bees can build out their wax honeycomb and make your beehive a home.

There are creative (and potentially profitable) ways for you to make use of your colonies’ honeycomb beeswax that you might want to consider.

This article is part of our beginner’s guide to the honey bee. Read another article in the series about what honey bees eat.

Additional Reading & Watching

A Closer Look: Beeswax, Wax Glands in Bee Culture, The Magazine of American Beekeeping

Honeycomb in Bee Culture, The Magazine of American Beekeeping