A Bee's Byproduct

     For the past year I have been searching for beeswax along with another friend.  He and I have long known of its application for carpenters and woodworkers.  Our fathers both used the honey by-product in their craft.  It has long been used by those in the trade to ease nails and screws into place, as well as an ingredient in wood finishes and furniture polish.

     A few weeks ago I finally hit paydirt after many unsuccessful searches through hardware stores and lumber yards.  It was for sale in an unlikely place for wood craftsmen, a food distributor!  The Golden Barrel outlet store in Honeybrook, PA had bricks of beeswax for sale right beside their other products: olive and coconut oil, molasses and wheat germ.  What a surprise!

     

     I never realized that there was a culinary application for the same product used to drive nails into wood.  I quickly learned that is but one of the many uses for the naturally anti-viral, antimicrobial sealant for honey.  Beeswax is commonly used in place of butter or oil to grease cookie sheets and muffin tins.  And mixed with clarified butter it is favored by bakers to lubricate molds for caneles de Bordeaux.  In the mold it also adds a honey flavor to the pastry with a distinct aroma and flavor.  And grated with a microplane and heated then cooled, the delicate lacework provides a crunchy garnish with floral notes to a salad.  But perhaps the most intriguing use of beeswax I came across was in the preparation of fish.  Molten beeswax is heated to 84 degrees C (183.2 F) and poured over the fish.  15 minutes later the wax is scraped off and the kissed-by-heat fish is served.

     Beeswax has a wide variety of uses in addition to its welcome presence in the kitchen.  It is the prime ingredient in candles, soaps, chewing gum, pill coatings, lip balm, hand creams, shoe polish, surfboard wax, soft gelatin capsules, and most importantly, moustache wax!