Royal jelly

What is royal jelly?

Royal jelly is the food given to larvae developing into queen honeybees. A larva developing into queen consumes much royal jelly and her weight increases 1300 times over period of six days.

How is it made?

Royal jelly is secreted from glands in the heads of young worker bees, and some sugars and proteins are also added from the worker bees’ stomachs.

What does it contain?

Royal jelly has many different components including proteins, sugars, fats, minerals and vitamins.

What does it look like?

A white, thick liquid, bit like fresh yoghurt or curds.

How is royal jelly harvested by beekeepers?

Under natural conditions a larva destined to become queen bee develops in an especially large wax cell or cup, and inside this cell worker bees place lavish amounts of royal jelly Honeybee colonies being used to produce royal jelly for harvest are manipulated by the beekeeper to start producing great numbers of queens, perhaps 50 or more. Worker bees therefore produce vast amounts of royal jelly (extra feeding of the colony is needed to achieve this) and place it in the queen cells. However instead of the larvae feeding on this and developing into queen bees, the larvae are removed and the royal jelly is harvested by the beekeeper.

Why is it valued so highly by humans?

Worker bees and queen bees start life as identical eggs laid by the parent queen. Whether an egg develops into worker or queen is determined by the way it is fed. Royal jelly differs from the food given to worker bee larvae. Subsequently adult queen bees differ in many respects from adult worker bees: the queen alone is fertile, will mate and will lay eggs, very prolifically. She will live much longer than her sister worker bees. Royal jelly is therefore potent food as far as developing honeybees are concerned.

Is royal jelly good for humans?

Mammals are very different from insects! Substances which have dramatic effects on honeybees may have no effect whatsoever on mammals, and vice versa. Royal jelly does have antibacterial properties: this is probably important in protecting larvae from infection by bacteria within the brood

Some people credit royal jelly with remarkable powers for humans and other animals too: however opinions differ and there is no scientific support. Certainly royal jelly is concentrated source of many nutrients.

What resources are needed for royal jelly harvest?

Royal jelly production requires plentiful supply of honeybee colonies, much skilled labour, technical know-how and rigorous time-keeping in the manipulation of colonies. Royal jelly must be harvested under hygienic conditions and rapidly refrigerated, frozen or freeze-dried.

Which countries harvest royal jelly?

The main countries harvesting royal jelly commercially are China, Taiwan and Thailand.

Which countries import royal jelly?

Mainly Japan, with relatively small amounts imported also by other industrialised countries.

COMMERCIAL ROYAL JELLY PRODUCTION

THE BEE ENTERPRISE that we are describing here is based in Chiang Mai. It consists of two directors and 35 apiary workers. They keep about 2700 Apis mellifera colonies, (totalling 24,000 combs) which they move to three different forage areas during the year. From December to February they make preparations for the main honey production period during March to May. Then follows short period of colony strengthening, mite control and rearing of new queens until July.

In July they start producing royal jelly and this continues until December. During the royal jelly production period, the 2700 colonies are distributed over 36 apiaries in the most suitable places, with a minimum distance of 5 km between each apiary. At each apiary there are about 75 colonies.

THE COMPANY

The beekeeping staff are divided into three groups of 10 persons each, and each group takes care of 12 apiaries. Each group of workers consists of five women and five men and is headed by group leader who is responsible for the technical beekeeping practice and the productivity of that group.

The enterprise owns four pick-up vehicles, one used by every group, and one for each director. The groups live in rented houses near wherever the bees are at any time. Every day each group visits four apiaries (Figure 1*). This means that every group can visit their 12 apiaries every three days.

*Please see the original journal article to see Figure 1. The beekeepers arrive at an apiary and unload all the equipment they need

COLONY MANAGEMENT

The purpose of each visit is to collect royal jelly from each hive, to re-graft new larvae, to check the queen and the strength of the colonies, and to feed sugar and pollen if necessary. Each apiary has some colonies continuously rearing new queens in case they are suddenly needed. If heavily diseased colonies are found, they are taken away and put in separate apiary for treatment.

The men work with the bee colonies: at first all the hives are opened using smoke, then the queen cup frames containing royal jelly are taken out and taken to a mosquito netting tent.

The men then start checking the colonies: each person checks about 15 colonies (Figure 2*). The combs always need re-arrangement so that the best conditions for royal jelly production are maintained.

*Please see the original journal article to see Figure 2.

Ten-frame Langstroth hives of the Chinese type are used. The queen is confined to six combs, separated from the other combs by means of a vertical queen excluder. In the queenless compartment one frame with queen cups is surrounded by combs with emerging brood and young nurse bees. Good supplies of pollen and honey must be present. In the queen compartment there must always be enough space for the queen to lay eggs. So from time to time empty combs must be added in exchange for brood combs, and there must: always be at least one comb containing plenty of pollen and honey.

This comb arrangement requires adjustment every three days. At the same time queens are checked and if necessary replaced by mated, young ones which are always available. Each royal jelly frame consists of three horizontal bars below each other, that are attached to the outer frame by one nail at each side, so that the bar can be rotated (Figure 4*). 30 queen cups are attached to each bar, so each royal jelly frame consists of 90 cups.

ROYAL JELLY HARVEST

The actual work of royal jelly extraction and the re-grafting of larvae is done by the five women in each group The work is all done under mosquito netting (Figure 5*). In each apiary they have to work on 75 queen cup frames within two hours. Before they start working they wash their hands with soap and water, then they put on mouth and hair caps in order to optimise the hygienic conditions needed for extracting the royal jelly.

Every third day the women harvest royal jelly from the grafted cells. The procedure is as shown in Figures 6, 7, 8 and 9*.

During all these procedures each bar with cups is rotated 90°, so that the frame is resting horizontally on the table, with all the cells facing upwards. The royal jelly is spooned into nylon fine-mesh sieve or filter bag, which is 3erted into good quality transparent plastic bag with a capacity of about one litre.

After re-grafting of the queen cup frames, the men immediately put them back into the hives with the cups in the downward position. Finally they end their apiary work by feeding sugar syrup, usually in sugar water solution (Figure 10*).

The quantity of sugar fed to each colony varies with the season: from none to about 500g every three days during rain. When necessary pollen cake is fed by putting it on top of some frames: dried pollen or soy flour mixed with a little honey is used.

In this way each apiary is dealt with within two hours, so each group of beekeepers can work on four apiaries daily, totalling about 300 colonies. In three days 12 apiaries with total of about 900 colonies can be worked on by each group.

STORAGE

Once the royal jelly is harvested and the plastic bag is three-quarters full, it is taken out of the container where it was held. Then the filter bag is pulled out of the plastic bag, thus filtering the royal jelly To do so in hygienic way the plastic bag is closed with one hand while the other hand is gently pulling out the nylon filter until all the royal jelly is filter pressed and remains in the bag. The bag is closed tightly with piece of string and immediately put into pre-cooled cooling box.

As soon as possible the bags of royal jelly are transferred from the cooling box into deep freeze with temperature below -15°C (Figure 11*).

During the whole royal jelly-extraction procedure the product is never touched by hand, nor contaminated with dirty materials. The royal jelly is stored in the plastic bags until it is marketed or further processed.

LONG DAYS

In the late afternoon each group returns to their home by car. Then they clean all the materials, store the royal jelly in the freezer, prepare everything for the next day and finally write notes on the major findings of the day, which they discuss with each other in a one- hour group meeting By doing so, newcomers get much information and feed-back on their activities. Every worker get four days off each month, which is planned in a group schedule so that at least eight persons work every day. The salary of the workers varies from 36 to 125 $ per month, depending on experience and responsibility. Food and lodging is free.

*Where reference to images or figures is made, please see the original journal article.

DEFINITIONS

Queen cups This is descriptive term for the cup- shaped wax structures built by bees. If the queen lays an egg into one of these structures then, once the egg has hatched and the larva is developing, the worker bees extend the cup into the large queen cell in which the larva can develop into mature queen bee. For royal jelly production artificial queen cups made of plastic are used.

Grafting

This term describes the process of a beekeeper transferring worker larvae into queen cups. One day old larvae are used for grafting because at this age no differentiation ( ie determination as to whether the larva will develop into a worker or a queen) has taken place.

Queen cup frames

Strips of plastic queen cups are nailed to wooden bars placed within standard frames. See Figure 4*.

The text of this article is adapted from booklet in Vietnamese, written by Vincent Mulder and translated by Nguyen Thu Hang. It was produced as result of co-operation between the Central Honey Bee Co, Vietnam and KWT/CIDSE. The information and pictures of beekeeping in Thailand are reproduced here with the kind permission of Mr Sanguan Ruengsiri of Chiangmai S P Bee Products.