Chinese insect wax

Chinese insect wax, also called China wax, or "pe-la" by the Chinese, often resembles spermaceti in whiteness and crystalline appearance, but it is of greater hardness and friability. The wax is the product obtainable from the coccid insect Coccus ceriferus Farb., (Coccus pela Westwood). The U. S. Dispensatory refers to the species as Ericerus pela. The insects are deposited on the twigs and branches of the Chinese ash, Fraxinus chinensis Rosburgh. The insects closely infest the twigs and become imbedded in a waxy material; when scraped off with the insects, this material constitutes the crude wax. Melting and straining purifies it. Cooper in his "Travels of a Pioneer" in China tells of its production in the manner described' below.

The seat of the industry is in Szechwan (province of Sze-chuen) in China. The "wax-trees" are cut down to a height of eight feet leaving no branches, the trunks sending forth shoots in the spring. The insects are cultivated in a different province (Yunnan). Here the brown pea-shaped scales containing the larvae of the wax insect are developed on an evergreen Ligustrum luditum Ait. (large-leaved privet) as a host. From Yunnan vast quantities of eggs or scales are shipped to Szechwan each year, where they are received in little balls the size of peas. These are suspended, enclosed in young leaves, on the shoots of the tree in March. In about two months the larvae emerging from the packets feed on the leaves. They soon attain the size of small butterflies, spreading themselves in immense number over the branches, which are so whitened by them as to seem covered with feathery snow. As it advances to the chrysalis form, the grub buries itself in a white secretion which covers all the branches an inch thick. These are then cut off near the stem and divided into small pieces, which are tied in bundles and put in large cauldrons, where they are boiled in water till the wax melts and rises to the surface. The wax is then skimmed off and run into molds, where it hardens. It is said that 1.500 insects produce 1 to 2 grams of wax; a pound of larvae scale will produce 4 or 5 pounds.