Honeybees consume honey and pollen to produce beeswax . Honeybees collect nectar from approximately two million flowers to make one pound of honey , nectar is collected from 17 million flowers to make 8.5 pounds of honey to make one pound of beeswax .
Within the darkness of the hive , thousands of bees work together to form the flakes of wax into honeycomb . Beeswax is secreted in the form of a scale about the size of a pinhead by worker bees that are 12 to 18 days old . The worker honeybee has eight wax secreting glands under her abdomen . It takes about 800,000 scales to make one pound of beeswax . The beeswax scale when first secreted , is tasteless , odorless , and almost colorless . Beeswax obtains its " natural " color of light yellow to golden amber due to propolis and pollen collected by the honeybees . The distinctive fragrance of beeswax is obtained from the propolis brought into the hive , and the storage of pollen and honey in the honeycomb .
The comb is used for storing honey and pollen , and for raising brood . The cells of the comb are constructed so that they tilt slightly upward from the base to the opening . That prevents gravity from causing nectar and honey to flow out of the cell . In the hexagonal geometry of the cells , nature has engineered the optimum compromise between strength and utilization of space .