Newsgroups: sci.agriculture.beekeeping Subject: Re: Royal Jelly Date: Wed, 02 Jul 1997 14:16:09 +0100 > What is Royal Jelly? How do you go about getting it out of the Hive? > > Just wondering!! > >From http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3872/ Royal Jelly Royal jelly is a glandular secretion of young workers that is placed in queen cells as a food for larval queens. It is called royal jelly because it is the sole food of queen larvae. It appears that the composition of royal jelly remains relatively constant over different colonies, bee strains and time. Some variations can occur as a result of nutritional and age conditions of the secreting worker bees, and care of collection/care of storage of the royal jelly. The components with greatest variations in gross composition are probably the sugars, mainly because workers add different amounts of sugar to royal jelly depending upon the age of the queen larva. Vitamins are present in royal jelly in varying amounts. Levels of the B vitamins in royal jelly are generally high. Otherwise vitamins are in low to very low levels. A wide variety of health and cosmetic properties have been attributed to royal jelly over the years. Nevertheless, no well designed controlled medical studies have demonstrated therapeutic effects for royal jelly. The most promising antibacterial and textural potential for royal jelly are as a topical cream with both cosmetic and antimicrobial action. Royal jelly also has potential as a dietary ingredient in both human foods and for animals. Royal jelly is usually produced in colonies maintained for that purpose. The queen is removed and a frame containing artificial queen cells, each with a 12-36 hour old worker larva is inserted. Three days later the frame is removed, the larvae discarded and the royal jelly collected either with a wooden spoon or a soft suction tube. A good queen cup will yield about 200-300 mg of royal jelly. Once collected the royal jelly can be stored in a tight container in the refrigerator for several months, frozen or freeze dried until used. The main markets in the U.S. and Europe for royal jelly are the cosmetic industry which uses royal jelly in moisturizing and skin cream as well as a variety of other products, and the health food market. The antibacterial, cleansing and textural properties of royal jelly likely account for its popularity in cosmetics. In the health food market royal jelly is often added as a supplement to other ingredients and vitamins which can be taken either as capsules, as parts of beverages, in confectionaries or mixed with honey as a spread. Royal jelly has a much larger market in Asia than in the U.S. or Europe. In Asia it is commonly found in products including cosmetics, food supplements and beverages and is used in the medical profession. In the U.S., royal jelly can be purchased for about US$6 per ounce (28 g) in 2 ounce containers. This adds up to about US$214 per kg. The largest producers of royal jelly are China, Japan and Korea. Annual production levels in China have been 220-360 metric tonnes. However, it can expected that the production levels in China have increased as a result of a huge increase in the production of honey and other products of the hive. Japan is both a large producer and importer of royal jelly.