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Originally and chiefly in U.S. slang, and especially in the phrases none of one’s beeswax and to mind one’s own beeswax, the noun beeswax is humorously substituted for the noun business (i.e., things that are one’s concern)—these two nouns sharing a similar-sounding initial syllable.

The noun beeswax occurs, for example, in the following from ‘Bible Belt’? I don’t think so, Alabama, by John Archibald, published in The Huntsville Times (Huntsville, Alabama, USA) of Wednesday 25^th January 2023 [page A1, column 4]:

I don’t care who or what or if you worship. I may have been brought up immersed in the ideals of the Christian church, but I was also washed in that grand American notion that religious freedom means what you believe is none of my beeswax. And vice versa.

These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences that I have found of the noun beeswax used in the sense of business:

1-: From the Portage Daily Democrat (Portage, Wisconsin, USA) of Friday 22^nd May 1908 [page 2, column 2]:

Teachers Have Champion.

Marshfield News: At the coming meeting of school superintendents soon to be held at Oshkosh, one of the questions to be solved is the length of service of teachers and how to increase that service. Plainly speaking the question is how to keep teachers from getting married. […] We wouldn’t blame a teacher, who had arrived at an age when a man looked better to her than single blessedness in a school room at $30 a month, to tell the superintendents that it was none of their beeswax.

2-: From Charivari, by ‘A Passer By’, published in the Valley County News (Glasgow, Montana, USA) of Friday 13^th October 1911 [page 2, column 3]:

Mothers! Fathers! Do you realize the sacred duty as parents? Are you trying to rear good men and women to take our places later on? Where is the old time refinement? Where are the refined replys [sic] of the youth? Gone from our midst are the modest boys and girls of a few years ago. When “yes sir,” “yes ma’am,” “No, thank you,” and “if you please,” were the replies given to older people. Now, “Yes,” “No,” “None of your business,” “none of your beeswax,” if you make a request of a boy on our street.

3-: From one of the unconnected paragraphs making up the column At the Schools, published in the Hubbard County Clipper (Park Rapids, Minnesota, USA) of Thursday 2^nd November 1911 [page 1, column 3]:

A teacher in relating a story said, “Mind your own——” and then stopped. “Own beeswax,” came from the back of the room.

4-: From Worse Than Whisky, published in The Weatherford Booster (Weatherford, Oklahoma, USA) of Thursday 7^th October 1915 [page 1, column 2]:

Every liquor house in the United States seems to hav us on their prospective customers lists. Being a tee-totaler we can’t understand how we got such a reputation unless some of our friends hav a spite against us and want to lead us into temptation. How ever their most enticing bargain offers on bottled in bond Sunnybrook go to the waste basket and we would rather dig some of these out for you than to hav you keep on taking Hostetters Sure Foolkiller. Some people kill themselves eating like hogs and some kill themselves by drinking like fools. Of course it is none of our beeswax if you want to kill yourself but we do hate to see you take the Hostetters route.

5-: From one of the unconnected paragraphs making up Additional Correspondence, published in the Ellsworth Reporter (Ellsworth, Kansas, USA) of Thursday 6^th January 1916 [page 8, column 1]:

See if you can’t mind your own beeswax once and see how it goes.