Hobbies And Interests
Cells Made of Beeswax
Honeycombs are made up of individual cells, each of which forms a perfect hexagon. Each cell is hollow so that it can be filled with honey, pollen stores or even young bees. The cells are made of beeswax, a material secreted from glands on the abdomen of female worker bees. The female worker bees chew and mold the wax into a honeycomb cell shape.
The Brood Comb
The brood comb is the section of honeycomb in a beehive where the queen bee lays her eggs. Healthy queens typically lay their eggs in the bottom center of the brood comb and work their way outwards. The eggs hatch into larvae. Honeycomb cells with nearly mature larvae in them are capped with wax.
Honey and Nectar Storage
The top layers of honeycomb in a hive are typically used to store honey and nectar for future consumption. Bees create different colors of honey and nectar from different types of plants. For this reason, the storage section of a honeycomb from wild bees often appears dotted with multicolored cells. In contrast, bees raised to pollinate large farms of one type of plant have storage sections filled with only one color of honey and nectar.
Caps
When a cell in a honeycomb has been filled, a worker bee gives it a "cap." A cap is a wax covering that acts much the same as a lid on a container. When the cell's contents are needed, the cap is broken. When beekeepers extract honey from honeycombs, they will often shave the caps off in thin sheets. These sheets are pure wax and can be used for candles or other beeswax products.