Top 10 Ways to Save the Bees & Use Beeswax

Save the Bees

Avoid synthetic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. The perfect lawn is unfortunately a top priority for some people. If you absolutely need to have that pristine lawn (that you think your neighbors envy when really they are most likely judging you for unnecessarily killing the bees), there are organic options to the harmful synthetic chemicals that you can spray at night when bees are less active. Neonicotinoid varieties of pesticides should be avoided at all costs.

Dandelions, clover and wildflowers that we might classify as weeds are good weeds! Let the dandelions bloom and then cut them down before they go to seed. The more natural you can leave your landscape (or even a portion of it) the better for our little bee friends.

Plant bee friendly flowers in your garden, yard or planters. Lilacs, lavender, sage, mint, squash, tomatoes, pumpkins, sunflowers, fuchsia and verbena are just a small sample of plants and vegetables that will attract bees and help them flourish.

Create a bee bath. Fill a shallow bird bath or container with clean water and add some stones, rocks or pebbles that will stick out of the water a little bit. This creates a place for the bees to land and drink while taking a break from pollinating.

Support your local farmers and beekeepers. Purchase your honey, beeswax products or beeswax from a beekeeper in your area. They work hard to create a healthy environment for their bees and who doesn’t love local, fresh honey? Supporting local farmers and eating organic foods will help create sustainable, earth-friendly agriculture which in turn helps the bees.

Homemade Beeswax Products

Lip Balm – There are lots of online recipes and instructions to make your own beeswax beauty products. I came across humblebee & me‘s Better Than Burt’s: Perfect Beeswax Lip Balm recipe and it’s next on my to-make list.

Create an Encaustic Painting – I’d never heard of Encaustic Painting before and I was intrigued. Using hot wax as a medium for painting? If you’re looking for a beginner’s guide give this site a try.

Make your own beeswax fire starter – We love camping and make our own fire starter out of egg cartons, lint and beeswax. It works great and there are a ton of different ways you can make them, including using dried lemon or orange skins after juicing instead of the egg cartons. You have a plethora of options and a quick Google search will help you to customize the starters if you want to get fancy. I use this method of melting the wax and making the the starters from harmonicmama.com

Beeswax and cotton food wraps – These can be purchased on Amazon or you can make your own. There are lots of online resources to get you started but my favorite one is here. Mountainroseherbs.com has done tried a few different techniques and published their results for each until they found the perfect recipe.

Food safe cutting board conditioner- I love my wooden cutting boards and utensils and am always looking for a way to keep them conditioned and looking beautiful. This article from cuttingboard.com explains the best way to keep your boards and utensils in top form and the ratio of beeswax and mineral oil you should be mixing.