The soaring price of Australian beeswax could be bad news for local beard owners – and good news for scammers – as demand for high-quality beeswax heats up.
New uses for the wax – from cosmetics to food wraps – and the comparative health of Australia’s bees have driven the export price of Australian beeswax up in the global marketplace.
Australia is one of the few countries in the world where hives are free of the debilitating varroa mite, meaning Australian wax is parasite-free, pesticide-free and of pharmaceutical quality.
Beekeepers who sell overseas, mostly to Europe, have watched wax prices sextuple in five years – from $5 to $30 a kilogram.
Meanwhile the varroa mite, as well as a multitude of other factors, have led to bee populations’ collapse around the world.
Mark Rice, who owns a small New South Wales home apiary called Green Hills Estate, said he had entered the industry as a hobby two or three years ago.
His first sale was to “a bloke at the market who was making candles”, for $15 a kilo. Now he is earning up to $35 a kilo.
“There’s a different sort of demand for it now with the increasing number of people who are into making beeswax wraps for food,” he said.
Beeswax wraps are an alternative to plastic food wrap. They are washable and reusable.
“People are trying to cut down on clingwrap and that sort of thing, to do their bit for the environment,” Rice said. “They’re selling them for $40, so there’s money in there.
“The second most popular are things like balms – lip balms and chafe balm. And one of my customers is a lady who runs a course for candlemaking.”
Beeswax is also used in beard and moustache styling. Kirsty Hunter, the co-founder of a beard wax company in Victoria, told the ABC a price rise was imminent.
“We’ve been established for two years now and the price has almost doubled,” she said.
Her business, the Dead Man’s Beard Company, is now absorbing the cost but she thinks she will have to pass it on to customers if the trend continues.
“The thought of having men walking around with untamed beards just fills me with dread,” she said.
Rice says there is now so much money in beeswax that scammers are trying to muscle in.
“One of the ladies who approached me for wax for lip balms purchased some pellets online that were supposedly cosmetic grade and I said, ‘Why don’t you bring it down and I’ll melt it and run it through my filters and see how clean it is.’
“I melted some of her pellets with steam and it adhered and bonded with the plastic container, whereas wax will normally peel off. It had this really horrible burnt chemical smell. I have approached the ACCC about it.”
In April the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council claimed a sample of imported wax from China was 85% paraffin, and contained traces of varroa pesticide.
“I need to get some of that beeswax tested,” Rice said. “That wax was supposedly Australian, filtered, cosmetic grade. I’ve spoken to other people at the bee club that say that’s not right.
“It suggests to me that this is probably being sold because the price is so attractive. People are trying to scam it and trying to make big bucks.”
