> >...bees do in fact gather wax. ....They use it in propolis, and
> also in coverings.

While interesting, this still does not mean that one should discard wax
around the bee yard while scraping frames and cutting burr comb, and this
was the original question.

The gathering of wax and propolis from scrapings and combs left around
outside beehives *may* ocur occasionally -- or even more regularly with some
types of bees or in some locales -- but in my limited experience (25+ years
of commercial beekeeping with almost all the breeds available in North
America at one time or another), you cannot count on the bees to come and
clean up after sloppy beekeeping.  In summer, they won't even bother to pick
up *honey* from comb on the ground around here.

Inside the hive, bees are regularly throwing old wax out the door, along
with scales of new wax that fall down, so, although we do know that bees do
re-use wax, we also know that it does not happen much -- or reliably -- when
they have lots of new wax, such as during flows.

Frankly, I never seen any appreciable amount of gathering of used propolis
or wax where I live and I'm fairly observant.

I'd love to be able to take a stack of excluders out to a bee yard and have
then cleaned by the bees.

allen