[Lexicog] Bees Wax

[bolstar1]

I have a question for anyone who might know why the OED, Random House, Merriam (dictionary & "Coined by Shakespeare" Merriam) don't list Shakespeare as having coined the word/phrase "bees-wax" or "mind your own bees wax." I know that everyone in Elizabethan times knew where wax for officially sealing various correspondences came from, but coinage being what is is (the first recorded use of a term/expression) it's puzzling that  the first listing in OED (online) lists the first use in 1676 -- MOXON Print lett. 12 "You may rub your stone over with little Bees Wax."; Merriam lists 1664, Random lists 1670). 
     Yet II Henry VI 4.2.81-84 (1590-91) reads, "Some say the bee stings, but I say, 'tis the bee's wax: for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since."  I must be not be able to see the Amazon jungle for the trees. 

Scott N.



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