Honeybee! Sounds like a logical answer, doesn’t it? What insect product is more important than honey? None, I suppose, but the answer to today’s riddle is not the honeybee.
Have you ever heard of shellac, Wondernose? That’s right, it’s a sort of varnish, a clear coating for wood. In fact, shellac is an ingredient used to make varnish. But did you know that shellac is made from something produced by little insects?
Before I continue, I’ll have to mention that in our changing world, the original form of shellac has declined in importance. There are many synthetic forms of varnish today that also work very well. But, for centuries, shellac was exclusively made from an insect product. It’s known that these products were already in use in India as long ago as 1200 BC!
That’s where these tiny insects are found—India and other southeast Asian countries. And they really are tiny. Their name comes from a word meaning “hundred thousand.” They live together in large groups, and many thousands of them are required to produce a quantity of shellac.
The insect lives by sucking sap out of certain trees, particularly soapberry, acacia, and fig trees. Although the larval forms have legs and eyes, those are lost in the adults. All they do is stick their proboscises into the branch and suck sap, staying in one place. Obviously, they have no need of legs.
I said that’s all they do, Wondernose, but wait, we mustn’t forget the product they manufacture. While sitting there sucking sap, these insects secrete a sticky, waxy substance. Eventually, the insects become covered in this “wax” and will appear simply as a mass of “wax” on a branch.
That’s when harvesting begins. Workers will break off the twigs and boil them in water, causing the lac to separate and rise to the top. “Lac” is what the strained substance is called, and, incidentally, it is also the name of the insect itself. Thus the answer to our riddle is the lac insect. Notice how the word “shellac” includes the insect’s name.
To help you realize how small the lac insect is, consider this. Up to 100,000 of them are needed to produce one pound of shellac! But here’s another fact to compare with that one. I’m told that back in the days when organic shellac was at the height of its importance, up to 90 million pounds of lac were harvested yearly. Of course, I cannot prove that.
How can such a tiny insect produce so much? That can be explained by its rapid reproduction. A single lac insect can lay up to 1000 eggs in a year’s time.
Let’s continue the story of how men transform the raw lac into a usable product. The melted lac is strained through canvas and spread out to cool and dry. Then liquid shellac is made by dissolving the flakes of shellac in alcohol. After being brushed onto wood, the alcohol will evaporate, leaving the shiny, hard coating that does so much to protect furniture and other wood products.
Lac is used in many other products also—inks, sealers, and pottery—to name just a few. And listen to this. Lac is used in making hard candies and tablets for medicine. Why not? Just because it’s also used in varnishes doesn’t mean it’s unfit for human consumption. Lac is a natural product manufactured by insects, as surely as honey is made by the honeybee.
