Complete Analysis of Key Points in Royal Jelly Production Technology

I. Basic Requirements for Producing Pollution-Free Royal Jelly

1. Apiary Environment Requirements

The breeding and production sites for royal jelly production colonies must be far away from heavily polluted urban areas, heavy industrial zones, chemical plants, pesticide factories, garbage treatment and landfill sites, sewage treatment plants, orchards and farmland where pesticides are frequently sprayed, to prevent indirect environmental contamination of royal jelly. There must also be abundant nectar and pollen sources as well as auxiliary nectar and pollen sources.

2. Royal Jelly Production Site Requirements

As a food that can be consumed directly, royal jelly must be produced in accordance with basic food production requirements. The rooms used for larval transfer and royal jelly extraction in royal jelly production should be clean and hygienic. For migratory apiaries, the production tents should be hygienic and clean, kept away from garbage dumps, toilets, manure pits, and similar sites.

3. Personnel Requirements

Personnel engaged in royal jelly production must be in good health, free from infectious diseases, possess good personal hygiene habits, and undergo regular health checkups. During royal jelly production, personnel must wear clean work clothes and keep their hands and clothing clean.

4. Royal Jelly Production Equipment Requirements

The production equipment to be prepared before producing royal jelly includes

Royal jelly collection frames, plastic queen cell bars, larval transfer needles, cell-cutting knives, tweezers, royal jelly extraction plates, royal jelly storage bottles, alcohol, towels, queen cell cleaners, frame storage boxes, etc.

Before and after royal jelly extraction, the extraction equipment must be cleaned and disinfected with 75% alcohol.

II. Management of Royal Jelly Production Colonies

1. Bee Species

The germplasm of royal jelly production colonies is closely related to the yield and quality of royal jelly. When selecting bee species for royal jelly production, one must consider not only royal jelly yield but also royal jelly quality, disease resistance, honey collection ability, and so on.

2. Production Queens

Generally, queens aged 2-18 months have relatively strong egg-laying capacity. Queens within this age range should be selected for reproduction and production. The queen should have bright coloration, steady movement, and a relatively large body size. Only such queens used as production queens can breed a large number of nurse bees of the appropriate age.

3. Production Colonies

During the production period, production colonies must contain a large number of nurse bees aged 8-20 days, the colony population must be above 8 full frames, and the colony must have sufficient honey and pollen feed. Starting 50 days before the production period begins, reward feeding should be initiated to stimulate the queen to lay more eggs, stimulate worker bees to actively rear brood, and help the colony become strong as quickly as possible.

(1) Organization of Royal Jelly Production Colonies

To produce royal jelly, one must first organize royal jelly production colonies. The method is to use a queen excluder to divide the colony into a brood-rearing area and a production area. In the production area, place 1-2 honey-pollen combs, 1-2 larval combs, and the rest as sealed brood combs. The royal jelly collection frame is inserted between the larval comb and the honey-pollen comb or sealed brood comb. In the brood-rearing area, place egg and larval combs, empty combs, pupal combs that are about to emerge or have begun to emerge, and honey-pollen combs, so that the production colony has a bee-to-comb ratio that is balanced or with slightly more bees than combs.

(2) Management of Royal Jelly Production Colonies

When royal jelly production first begins, the colony population is relatively weak, so the number of queen cell bases should be appropriate. After the colony has grown and strengthened, the number of cell bases should be increased quantitatively according to the colony population. The population of royal jelly production colonies should be appropriately dense, with slightly more bees than combs.

In hot seasons, attention must be paid to providing shade for the colonies or placing them under tree shade, enlarging the hive entrance, and opening the bottom screen window and the ventilation openings on the hive cover. During periods of high temperature and drought, at 11 AM and 2 PM each day, cover the wire screen inner cover with a wetted cloth or towel, or place a feeder inside the nest to supply water, so as to facilitate @#@255@#@ water absorption for cooling and to maintain humidity inside the nest.

Inspect and adjust the colony every 5-7 days. During inspection and adjustment, move newly sealed combs and 1-2 larval combs from the brood-rearing area to the production area, and move emerging brood combs from the production area to the brood-rearing area. During inspection, take care to remove natural queen cells to prevent natural swarming and to avoid affecting the acceptance rate of queen cell bases.

(3) Management of Brood-Supply Colonies

Brood-supply colonies are colonies that provide healthy, disease-free young larvae of uniform age for royal jelly production. The brood-supply colony should preferably be a dedicated colony, with a population of 3-4 full frames of bees, containing 3-4 combs: one honey-pollen comb, one old mature brood comb, and one empty comb of suitable age and condition. The empty comb should be inserted into the brood-supply colony 5 days in advance. After the queen has laid eggs for 5 days, remove this comb for use in larval transfer. At the time of larval transfer, most larvae on this comb will be 12-36 hours old. Every 1-2 weeks, transfer in one medium-to-old sealed brood comb so that the brood-supply colony always has new bees emerging, ensuring the population and nursing capacity of the brood-supply colony.

III. Procedures for Producing Royal Jelly

Royal jelly production generally follows these procedures

1. Installing Queen Cell Bars

Before royal jelly production begins, first bind the cell base bars with wire or glue them onto the cell base strip of the royal jelly collection frame, then insert the frame with the installed cell base bars into the production colony to let worker bees clean the cell bases.

2. Larval Transfer

Take out the previously prepared larval comb from the brood-supply colony, shake off the bees from the comb, place the larval comb on a holding tray, and use a larval transfer needle to move larvae aged 12-36 hours from the brood cells of the comb, gently placing them at the bottom of the cell bases, with 1 larva per queen cell base.

3. Inserting the Frame

The royal jelly collection frame with transferred larvae is temporarily placed in the frame storage box, covered with a clean wet towel or gauze, and promptly inserted into the reserved frame insertion position in the production colony. Three to five hours after inserting the collection frame, check the acceptance of the queen cells and examine the survival rate of the larvae in the queen cells. Promptly supplement with larvae for any that were not accepted, and check again the next morning.

4. Larva Inspection

Three days after larval transfer, remove the collection frame from the colony, gently shake off the bees from the frame, and then brush the bees off clean with a bee brush. Use a clean cell-cutting knife to cut away the wax wall at the upper part of the cell base. When cutting, keep the cell opening level and do not cut the larvae. Use disinfected tweezers to gently pick out the larvae from the queen cell bases, taking care not to crush the larvae and also preventing wax fragments from falling into the royal jelly.

5. Royal Jelly Extraction

After larva removal is completed, use a clean royal jelly extraction plate to extract as much royal jelly as possible from the queen cells. Store the extracted royal jelly temporarily in a storage bottle.

6. Cell Cleaning

Accepted cell bases can continue to be used for larval transfer. Unaccepted plastic cell bases often contain excess wax, which must be cleaned out with a queen cell cleaner before transferring in age-appropriate larvae for the next round of royal jelly production.

7. Preservation of Royal Jelly

After royal jelly collection is completed, immediately seal the mouth of the bottle containing the royal jelly, attach a label marked with weight, production date, place of origin, and nectar source, and place it in a refrigerator or freezer for frozen storage as soon as possible. For migratory apiaries without refrigerators or freezers, the royal jelly should be delivered to purchasing units for sale as early as possible.

IV. Technical Measures for High-Quality and High-Yield Royal Jelly

1. Use Bee Species with High Royal Jelly Quality and Yield

Different varieties of royal jelly production colonies have different production performance and produce royal jelly of different quality. Breeding queens should be introduced from breeding institutions as queen bees with high royal jelly quality and yield, to breed production queens.

2. Select Healthy and Strong Colonies for Royal Jelly Production

Production colonies must be healthy and free from infectious diseases. Feeding management of production colonies should be strengthened, and the bees within the colony should be kept appropriately dense. For royal jelly production colonies, stop using bee medications 6 weeks before royal jelly production begins. Production colonies must remain strong, and a certain number of nurse bees aged 8-20 days must always be maintained within the colony.

3. Use the Major Honey Flow Period for Royal Jelly Production

During the major honey flow from external nectar sources, the large amounts of fresh pollen and honey collected by field bees stimulate the activity of the nurse bees' royal jelly glands. Sufficient nutrition enhances the royal jelly secretion capacity of nurse bees, so the royal jelly secreted is greater in quantity and better in quality. Royal jelly production apiaries should seize this favorable opportunity to actively produce royal jelly.

4. Maintain Sufficient Feed in Production Colonies

If feed is insufficient within the colony, worker bees will draw on their internal nutrient reserves, and the royal jelly secreted will be of poorer quality. Royal jelly production colonies should always maintain more than 4 kg of stored honey and more than 1 frame of pollen comb. When these storage levels are not reached, supplemental feeding should be provided promptly.

5. Determine Cell Base Numbers According to Colony Population

In royal jelly production, the average royal jelly amount per cell base should be maintained above 250 mg. Generally, when nectar source conditions are good, colonies of 8-11 frames use 90-150 queen cell bases; colonies of 12-14 frames use 150-200 queen cell bases; colonies of more than 15 frames use 200-260 queen cell bases.

6. Strictly Control Larval Transfer Age

In natural queen cells, after egg hatching, at 96 hours of larval age, the royal jelly accumulated in the queen cell is greatest in amount and best in quality. Therefore, when the royal jelly extraction cycle is 3 days, the larvae used for royal jelly production should preferably be 1 day old. The larval age should be strictly controlled within the range of 12-36 hours. Only royal jelly produced in this way can have high yield and good quality.