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royal jelly

4K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  Michael Bush 
#1 ·
hi all:
I was wondering if any one has experience and know how with royal jelly? i.e. raising queen cells, harvesting , and storage of jelly.
what the easiest and more productive method of doing it?
any info will be greatly appreciated

thanks,
mike
 
#2 ·
That's a real general question. What part don't you already know? I know.

You probably want to dehydrate it and store and sell it as a powder. Did you know that part? The rest is what you'd assume. Just like raising queens. Graft. Let the bees fill the cell with RJ. Wait til you can see the larvae so you can remove it. Then scoop out all the RJ. Complain about the small harvest for the amount of work.

Hawk
 
#3 ·
hi Robert:
thanks for your reply. no I did not know that you can dehydrate RJ. when I posted my question, I absolutely had no clue that RJ can be harvested until my new sister in law asked me for some. I was stumped, and too it was late in the season . so I promised her I'd make her some (hopefully) next spring.
so the only info I know is what you already mentioned . i.e. grafting cells and prior to cell closing extract the RJ.
I was told to freeze it once I harvest it. I think that would be difficult since every time it needed to be used it would have to be defrosted. I like your idea of dehydration. do I use veggie dehydrator? I have one, but wont the hot air effect color or smell?

I appreciate your help & time
thanks
 
#4 ·
Get a very small jar and scoop it out of the cells into the jar with a very small "spatula" or a flat stick about 1/8" or 3/16". Put the jar in the freezer and next time take the jar back out and scoop some more in.

If you don't freeze it it will change from white and "creamy" to brown and "jelly".

I don't know that the change hurts the nutrition or not. I used to do this to collect it for grafting queens until I decided it really didn't help that much and was too much work.
 
#6 ·
I don't know anything about dehydrating RJ but if you want to collect a "quanity" of jelly, if you can call it that, is to use the jelly from swarm cells. Scoop it out as Michael suggests or you can cut the swarm cells out and squeeze it like a tube of toothpaste into a container. I keep it in a container the size of a film canister. Keep it frozen as it seems to spoil quickly. It seems to have a long shelf life if kept frozen. On a side note the local health food store here sells the jelly for about $15 an oz.
 
#7 ·
My understanding is that royal jelly collected commercially in China is done within the first few days of queen larval development. Initial feedings to new queen larvae are derived mostly from the mandibular glands of nurse bees. After three days the feedings change to a 1:1 ratio of mandibular gland secretions and hypophryngeal gland secretions.
 
#8 ·
Michael,

How did you you use the frozen Jelly, did you have to use it all at once or could you thaw it and use some then refreeze?

Thanks
 
#9 ·
>How did you you use the frozen Jelly, did you have to use it all at once or could you thaw it and use some then refreeze?

I only froze it for the long term. When I was in the middle of queen rearing I was putting it in the fridge in between and warming to room temps and using it for the grafts. I don't think it helped, so I stopped doing it. But I had a very small container to start with. What do you want to do with it? I'd put it in small enough containers to serve your purpose.
 
#10 ·
I was thinking of using for queen rearing adding to grafting cells. But it sounds like you did not see any real advantage?
 
#11 ·
No. I don't think it makes any difference. I tried using it and not using it. Then again, I was using a Jenter and all the royal jelly in the cup goes with the larvae. Dolittle was the first to suggest adding the Royal Jelly when grafting and Jay smith concurred in his first book but changed his mind by the second book. Smith concluded that the bees just removed the old royal jelly he added anyway and he got no better acceptance nor better queens by using it.
 
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