How Is Royal Jelly Produced? A Detailed Introduction to the Production Process
Royal jelly is a secretion from the glands of worker bees, including the hypopharyngeal glands (commonly known as royal jelly glands) and the mandibular glands. It is the lifelong food of worker bee and drone larvae within 3 days of age, as well as of the queen bee.
Depending on the flowering period, production season and bee species, royal jelly appears as a milky white to slightly yellowish curd-like substance with a sour, pungent, astringent and slightly sweet taste.
Royal jelly is a natural health product with no harm to the human body, and its range of applications is quite broad. Men, women, the elderly and the young can all benefit from it. After taking it, it can enhance the body's immune function and promote recovery after illness. It has significant auxiliary therapeutic effects on many conditions, including high blood pressure, high blood lipids, neurasthenia, arteriosclerosis and skin damage.
1. Production Conditions
The temperature is required to be above 15°C with no continuous cold spells. Nectar and pollen sources should be abundant and continuous, especially with sufficient pollen. This should be during a supplementary nectar flow period or a main nectar and pollen flow period, with no shortage of nectar and pollen sources expected within 15 days.
The colony has already had its insulation wrapping removed and is in the growth phase; the colony population is growing at an accelerated rate, with young bees accumulating gradually and trending toward surplus, but serious swarming fever has not yet occurred.
2. Preparation for Royal Jelly Production
The tools for producing royal jelly include: royal jelly frames, queen cell cup bars, grafting needles, tools for scraping royal jelly, sharp knives, tweezers and royal jelly storage bottles, etc. The specifications of the royal jelly frame are similar to those of a hive frame, with the top bar and side bars all being 13mm; 4 strips of 13mm width and 6-8mm thickness are installed horizontally inside the frame. These are called cell bar holders, used for mounting the queen cell cup bars. The cell bar holders should ideally be able to turn freely.
When the royal jelly production colony reaches more than 8 frames of bees, royal jelly production can begin. If using a single-box setup for royal jelly production, the frames should be appropriately compressed so that bees slightly outnumber the frames. Use a queen excluder to divide the hive body into 2 zones, namely the brood-rearing zone and the royal jelly production zone. In the brood-rearing zone, place the queen and 3-4 frames (old pupae, empty frames, egg frames) for colony reproduction; in the royal jelly production zone, place honey and pollen frames, new pupae frames, larvae frames and royal jelly frames in sequence from both sides. For colonies that already have a super added, place a flat queen excluder between the brood box and the super, also dividing it into 2 zones, with the comb frames arranged in the upper and lower 2 zones in the order described above. For colonies using a double-queen system for royal jelly production, one queen's brood frames and bees should be made more numerous to create conditions for jelly secretion, and frames should be inserted following the method for queenright colonies with a queen excluder.
3. Producing Royal Jelly
Use frame wire to tie the queen cell cup bars onto the cell bar holders so that the bottom of the cup bars lies flat against the cell bar holder. Then place a little honey in each queen cell cup and put it in the bee colony to let the worker bees clean it for 30-60 minutes. When white or yellow new wax appears on the cell cups, take it out for larval grafting.
Most royal jelly production uses the single larval grafting method, with larvae aged 12-20 hours being ideal. Grafting should be fast and accurate, with uniform larval age, no needle damage, and high survival and acceptance rates. Pay attention to keeping the larval frames warm and to the time of use. Each larval frame should not be kept outside the colony for more than 1 hour, and used larval frames should be promptly returned to their original colony. To save time finding larval frames, it is best to designate brood-rearing colonies before royal jelly production, taking frames as needed. After grafting, immediately place the royal jelly frame into the production colony. The bee space should be determined by the number of bees; when there are fewer bees, the bee space should be slightly smaller, and when there are more bees, slightly larger. Where conditions permit, 3-4 hours after grafting, the royal jelly frame can be taken out to re-graft larvae of the same age as those in other cell cups into cell cups that were not accepted.
Royal jelly is harvested 65-70 hours after grafting, and during peak season it can be done a few hours earlier. When taking the royal jelly frame out of the colony, first loosen the comb frames on both sides of the royal jelly frame slightly and push them outward to ensure that no bees are crushed and no queen cells are bumped when lifting the frame. Gently brush off the worker bees attached to the royal jelly frame with a bee brush. Do not shake it forcefully, to prevent shaking out the royal jelly or causing larvae to sink into the jelly, which would reduce royal jelly yield.
After removing the royal jelly frame, use a sharp knife to cut off the beeswax from the raised portion at the mouth of the cell cups. Cut it flat and even, exposing the shape of the original cell cup. Then use tweezers to remove the larvae from the cell cups. Finally, use a royal jelly collection pen or scraping spatula to gently scrape along the inner wall of the cell cup to remove the royal jelly, scraping it into the storage bottle. If one scraping does not get it all clean, it can be repeated. Then proceed to scrape the next one.
After all the royal jelly in the frame has been collected, use a knife to cut away the beeswax inside and around the cell cups that were not accepted. Use a royal jelly collection pen to dip a little residual jelly from accepted cell cups and smear it into the unaccepted cell cups, then graft larvae and place the frame back into the production colony.
4. Royal Jelly Storage
Most commercial apiaries are located in mountainous areas or in the field, without refrigeration equipment. Therefore, after collecting royal jelly, the bottle mouth should be sealed. Place the jelly bottle in mountain spring water or cold water for storage. Alternatively, dig a pit 1-2m deep in a shaded, ventilated area of the apiary, place a bucket inside it, and put the jelly bottle in the bucket. Store at below 10°C for 5-7 days, and deliver it to the purchasing unit as soon as possible to prevent high temperatures from affecting the quality of the royal jelly.