Wax Gland
Lexikon
Workers have eight paired wax glands on the underside of the abdomen, one on each of the ventral scales of the third to sixth segments.
Workers have eight paired wax glands on the underside of the abdomen, one on each of the ventral scales of the third to sixth segments. In these glands liquid wax is formed, which emerges on the body surface on what are called wax mirrors and solidifies immediately on cooling into thin, whitish wax scales. The bee plucks off these scales with her legs, kneads them with her mouthparts, and builds them into comb cells.
The wax glands are active above all in younger workers during their phase as builder bees, that is, roughly in the second and third week of life. The colony needs large amounts of food for wax production, because wax is energetically very costly to produce. Intensive comb building therefore usually presupposes a good nectar flow or feeding and can be recognized by the high food consumption of a building colony.
For beekeepers it is relevant that wax gland activity is not necessarily tied to a fixed age. After swarming or in the case of a sudden need for new combs, older bees too can reactivate their wax glands. A widespread misconception is therefore that only very young bees can build; in reality, building activity is above all governed by the colony's actual need for new comb.