I've learned over time to remove the wax, and let the material "acclimate" (usually at least 6 moths of it sitting in my handle material cabinet), otherwise let's say I were to order some wood from someplace very humid like Florida......it's sent to Montana, where the humidity hovers in the teens. I leave the wax on, then right before putting it on a knife, I remove the wax. All of a sudden that moisture that was sealed inside the wood in Florida, gets rapidly "sucked" out by my dry climate...... and more times then not, bad things happen. The handle material shrinks AFTER its on the knife, or warps and pulls away from the tang (on a full tang), or the worst, it checks or cracks. Just the reverse happens if the wax is left on until just before use.....if the material goes from a dry to a high humidity environment (things swell).
Probably the best example of this was when I built a "gator" knife for a gentleman in southern Florida....he wanted sheep horn scales, and I didn't really think it through. The knife was of course made in Montana. The scales were applied with Loveless bolts, and accraglass. About two months after he received the knife, he called saying that the handles had separated from the tang. Then he sent a picture! OMG!! The sheep horn had curled near the back of the handle, and one side had literally pulled the loveless bolt through the handle material! That was a big DUH moment for me. I ended up replacing the sheep horn with carbon fiber......something that approximated the cost of the sheep horn scales, and would not be affected by environmental conditions.
There are many natural materials that I either hesitate, or just plain refuse to use for knife handles.... because I've known them to be sensitive to environmental changes...... Ebony being one of the worst. There's a reason why you see most seasoned knifemakers using the natural materials they do, such as African Blackwood, Desert Ironwood, or sambar stag...... those particular species are more stable, and not as susceptible to climatic changes then many others.