Honey bees are the only insects that make their main building material inside their bodies.

Other insects build their nests/homes of materials they collect and sometimes supplement with a secretion such as saliva, but only honey bees excrete their main construction material - wax. Each worker bee has 8 wax glands on the ventral side of her abdomen which start producing wax about 12 days after she emerges as an adult from her pupal cocoon. Her wax production is at its highest for about the next week; then she tends to move onto other duties in the hive.