Bees Wax; History and Origin

We have often been asked where wax comes from? Well there are many types of Waxes. Bees wax has been around for a while. There are many mentions of beeswax in historic writing such as the myth where Icarus son of Daedalus put on wings of wax and as he flew too close to the sun, it melted and Icarus fell to his death. The father with more experience flew closer to the ground and made it to Italy. In Roman times Pliny, lived from 23 AD to 79 AD and described white bees wax which he got by boiling yellow bees wax in salt water. This was then used in broth and feed to those with dysentery, it was also used as a skin softener.

Some beeswax to this day is used in cosmetics. Virgil the great Roman Poet (well I do not think the stuff is that good) wrote of an invention by Pan, who was the guardian of the bees (an ancient bee keeper man) made a flute of reeds held together by bees wax. During the Middle Ages wooden panels covered with beeswax was noted by Homer a Greek poet. Many Romans were honored by having statues made of them selves made in bees wax and thus today we have the Movie Land Wax Museum in LA. Romans also wore Death Masks as well occasionally. The Egyptians used wax figures of deities in funeral ceremonies and placed them in graves. In 400 BC Greek Historians say that Persian coated bodies were a form of embalming. The Assyrians covered bodies with bees wax and then dipped the bodies in honey? Hey honey, who knows? In 181 BC when the Romans defeated the Corsicans and imposed a tax of 100,000 lbs of bees wax.

The Romans demanded bees wax when they conquered the city of Trebizond in the first century AD. In Medieval European times wax was a a unit of trade for taxes or other. In 1330 farmers in one region of France paid 2 lbs of bees wax per year. On 1632 records show that the French Monastery called for rent of 600 lbs. of bees wax per year. Also in 1371 a petition was presented to the London Court of Alderman in behalf of the Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers, which established them as the world