What's the difference between earwax and bee's wax?

Andrew buzzed in with an answer to this waxy question...

Kat:: I love this.Andrew:: So, the main difference is, don't eat earwax. Wax is generally made of long hydrocarbon molecules, oils and fats. The main one in beeswax is a combination of the product of a fatty acid and an alcohol so that's what gives most of its waxiness. Actually, it's not too dissimilar with what's in the ear. I was trying to work out what the best defining feature is why you wouldn't want to eat one and eat the other because the smells are really just due to what impurities make it up. The main difference I could come down to was that beeswax, what makes these lovely honeycomb structures and they then put honey in them, the bees secrete to make it. Your ears make earwax to pick up dead cells, bacteria and hair. That really is the difference. So, you get quite disgusting thing out your ear where you get honey from the beehive.Kat:: Lovely!Andrew:: But the wax is fairly similar.Kat:: But then the wax, there's two types of earwax as well, isn't it? There's like wet wax and dry earwax. So you couldn't make a candle out of either of them.Andrew:: I think you can. I'm sure you can. It - just don't.Kat:: Christmas present ideas!Andrew:: That difference in melting temperatures, depending what ratio of a different wax chemicals used to make it but effectively, a wax is just an oil that has a melting point above room temperature so it solidifies.