Pure Royal Jelly

Royal Jelly - Harvest

Royal jelly is normally harvested in a beeunfriendly way by stimulating colonies with movable frame hives to produce queen bees. Royal jelly is collected from each individual queen cell when the queen larvae are about four days old. It is collected from queen cells because these are the only cells in which large amounts are deposited; when royal jelly is fed to worker larvae, it is fed directly to them, and they consume it as it is produced, while the cells of queen larvae are "stocked" with royal jelly much faster than the larvae can consume it. Therefore, only in queen cells is the harvest of royal jelly practical.

A "well-managed" hive of a beekeeper who doesn't care about cruelty to animals, is able to produce during a season of 5–6 months approximately 500 g of royal jelly. Since the product is perishable, producers must have immediate access to proper cold storage (e.g., a household refrigerator or freezer) in which the royal jelly is stored until it is sold or conveyed to a collection centre. More on harvest without cruelty to animals...

Royal Jelly - Composition

Royal jelly is collected and sold as a dietary supplement, claiming various health benefits because of components like B-complex vitamins such as pantothenic acid (vitamin B_5 ) and vitamin B_6 (pyridoxine). The overall composition of royal jelly is 67% water, 12.5% crude protein (including small amounts of many different amino acids, and 11% simple sugars (monosaccharides), also including a relatively high amount (5%) of fatty acids. It also contains many trace minerals, some enzymes, antibacterial and antibiotic components, and trace amounts of vitamin C. The fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E and K, are completely absent from royal jelly.

Royal Jelly - Epigenetic effects

The honey bee queens and workers represent one of the most striking examples of environmentally controlled phenotypic polymorphism. In spite of their identical, clonal nature at the DNA level they are strongly differentiated across a wide range of characteristics including anatomical and physiological differences, the longevity of the queen and reproductive capacity. Queens constitute the sexual caste and have large active ovaries, whereas workers have only rudimental inactive ovaries and are functionally sterile. The queen worker developmental divide is controlled epigenetically by differential feeding with royal jelly. A female larva destined to become a queen is fed large quantities of royal jelly that triggers a cascade of molecular and spiritual events resulting in queen development.

Royal Jelly - Uses

Royal jelly has been reported as a possible immunomodulatory agent in Graves' disease. It has also been reported to stimulate the growth of glial cells and neural stem cells in the brain. To date, there is preliminary evidence that it may have some cholesterol- lowering, anti-inflammatory, wound-healing, and antibiotic effects, though the last three of these effects are unlikely to be realized if ingested (due to the destruction of the substances involved through digestion, or neutralization via changes in pH. Research also suggests that the 10-Hydroxy-2-decenoic acid (10-HDA) found in royal jelly may inhibit the vascularization of tumors. There are also some preliminary experiments (on cells and lab animals) in which royal jelly may have some benefit regarding certain other diseases, though there is no solid evidence for those claims, and further experimentation and validation would be needed to prove any useful benefit. Royal jelly can also be found in some beauty products. Read more about uses of pure royal jelly...
Read more about sources of supply for pure royal jelly...

Royal Jelly - Is it enough to purchase organic Royal Jelly? Does chemical analysis of Royal Jelly show everything?

More important than chemical analysis of products such as royal jelly, raw-propolis, propolis-tincture, beeswax, comb honey, comb in the comb, raw honey, beesbread is the origin of the raw materials, the way beekeepers keep their bees and which kind of hives they use. This fact is overseen in many cases by trading companies and producers of royal jelly products. Royal jelly products offered in supermarkets or drug stores sometimes contain not only pollutant loads or enrichments with harmful substances but also cancer causing and biotechnological produced plant oils, sugar substitutes as isomalt or aspartame.

The quality of food and beeproducts such as royal jelly cannot be clearified by common analytic methods and techniques. Analytic procedures are too crude; thats the reason why foodstuff inspectors were often easy game for the swindlers.

Also methods of harvesting royal jelly are very often anything but according the needs of bees. Even socalled organic royal jelly may be contaminated with beeswax that contains low amounts of pesticides or paraffin. Thus, royal jelly, raw honey, beeswax, beesbread, pollen and propolis may be contaminated, especially if beekeeping methods are not according standards of Centre for ecological Apiculture. Further reading and references...

Royal jelly - contaminated with pollen from genetically modified crops?

Honeybees in Switzerland collect pollen from maize, also GM-maize (which is not yet prohibited in Switzerland), more frequently than expected; these pollen can be found in beeproducts (royal jelly, pollen, beesbread, comb in the comb, propolis, beeswax) from Switzerland or other countries who allow GM-crops to be grown such as USA, Canada, China, Philippine Islands, Brasil, Argentina, Mexico, Romania, Czech, Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, South Africa, Australia, India, Uruguay, Spain, Portuga. Food containing GM-maize or compounds of other genetically engineered crops are toxic as new scientific research turned out. Further reading and references...

Royal jelly - in Pharmacy and Cosmetics, alternative Medicine, holistic therapies and Natural Cosmetics

As cosmetic industry want to offer low budget products, it is creating now cremes, lotions and fragrances without natural ingredients good for skin care such as beeswax, Propolis and organic herbal oils; cosmetic industry is using poor and cancerogenic compounds instead such as Paraffinum Liqu., microcristaline wax (Mikroparaffin) or vaseline, PEG (Polyethylenglykol), Aluminium, Benzoeacid. Even expensive cosmetics may contain substances who support tumors in respiratory tract. Sometimes they just add royal jelly made in China.
Further reading and references...
Read more about sources of supply for pure royal jelly...