BEES are ancient masters of the art of home-building. The discovery of
beeswax from the Triassic period shows that they have been lining their brood
cells with wax for at least 220 million years.
Paul Kay, an independent scientist from Denver, Colorado, found the wax in a
petrified log. He says the bees must have dug the cells in the wood, then lined
them with a liquid that quickly solidified into waxy esters.
Petrification later replaced wood fibres with rock, but the waxy compounds
remained. Kay found three straight-chained esters containing 28 to 32 carbon
atoms in the brood cell walls.
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Kay believes the wax survived because it repels water. 鈥淲hile it鈥檚 buried,
water doesn鈥檛 penetrate through it鈥攕ilica just entombs it,鈥� he said last
week at a meeting of the Geological Society of America in Salt Lake City,
Utah.