Wax Adulteration
Lexikon
Beeswax is occasionally adulterated with cheaper substances, in recent times above all with stearin and paraffin, and formerly also with tallow.
Beeswax is occasionally adulterated with cheaper substances, in recent times above all with stearin and paraffin, and formerly also with tallow. For the beekeeper this is not a marginal issue, because adulterated wax usually enters the operation already as finished foundation.
The effects differ. Paraffin makes foundation soft and unstable, and combs can sag. Stearin damages the brood. In a trial by the Hohenheim State Institute for Apiculture, larval development slowed from a stearin content of 7.5 percent, and the bees removed brood again or capped it irregularly. At 30 percent stearin, hardly any brood developed at all.
Additions of stearin, paraffin and tallow can be detected from about 2.5 percent upward. The Hohen Neuendorf State Institute for Apiculture uses infrared spectroscopy for this as a fast preliminary screening method, for which about twenty grams of sample are needed.
Attention was triggered by a case in 2016, in which larger quantities of adulterated wax reached Europe. Subsequent investigations found additions in a significant proportion of the samples. Practical prevention consists of one's own closed wax cycle and sourcing foundation of traceable origin.