royal jelly production

tig · November 09, 2008, 06:30:16 PM

hi! anyone here making royal jelly? i have a few questions about that. is it better to use a queenless or a queen right colony? and how many cells is the maximum a colony can make at any single time without stressing it too much? i plan to try on 5 strong queenright colonies which will be set up with 4 pollen frames each, 2 open brood frames and the rest will be sealed and emerging brood. the queen will be confined at the bottom with an excluder and a top feeder will be used for sugar syrup [there is no honeyflow at the moment]. the colonies are well stocked with an abundance of nurse bees and foragers. will they be able to handle 300 cells at one time? or is that too much? too little?

Michael Bush · November 09, 2008, 09:36:34 PM

I know of no one raising it other than for grafting purposes. It would be very labor intensive to collect it and you can buy it cheaper than you can make it. I don't know how many cells you can keep going for what length of time. I wonder if they don't steal it from worker larvae as well, since they are fed royal jelly the first few days as well. As far as queen cells you can generally not get a hive to take care of more than 50 and not very good care of more than 30 or so. For grafting WHEN I used it, I used a small spatula to gather it.

rdy-b · November 09, 2008, 10:04:30 PM

http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/08/video-indonesian-royal-jelly-production.html 8-) RDY-B

bassman1977 · November 09, 2008, 10:47:29 PM

Just wow...nice video. What does that stuff taste like?

annette · November 09, 2008, 10:50:03 PM

I tasted some royal jelly once and I can honestly say it was terrible. Tastes like something only an insect would like

bassman1977 · November 09, 2008, 10:50:38 PM

I figured as much. :-D

tig · November 10, 2008, 03:52:08 AM

thanks for the reply and the video link! i'm not too concerned about the labor cost since labor is very cheap in my country. i think i will have to have support colonies to help those for royal jelly production to add to the nurse bee population. actually the taste is awful...sorta sour and rancid like and why anyone would want to eat it is beyond me! but i have prospective buyers and i was thinking it would help add to my income specially during the dearth months.

Michael Bush · November 10, 2008, 07:56:24 AM

I thought it tasted kind of interesting and nice. Not wonderful, but not bad. Then again, there's fresh and there is dried...

Cindi · November 10, 2008, 10:38:04 AM

Quote from: annette on November 09, 2008, 10:50:03 PM
I tasted some royal jelly once and I can honestly say it was terrible. Tastes like something only an insect would like

Annette, you say the funnnnneeeee-est things sometimes, I get a real kick out of ya, thanks for making that wonderful smile come to my face. Have a most wonderful day and life, great health. Cindi

annette · November 10, 2008, 02:21:01 PM

So Michael, which did you try?? The dried or fresh??? I tried the fresh

annette · November 10, 2008, 02:21:51 PM

Cindi,

Glad I made you laugh. Really you must try it sometime and let me know what you think.

bassman1977 · November 10, 2008, 02:22:47 PM

QuoteReally you must try it sometime and let me now what you think.

Smiling or the Royal Jelly? :-P

Michael Bush · November 10, 2008, 09:10:31 PM

Fresh. The dried does look like jelly. The fresh looks more like cream.

Cindi · November 11, 2008, 12:47:53 PM

Quote from: bassman1977 on November 10, 2008, 02:22:47 PM
QuoteReally you must try it sometime and let me now what you think.

Smiling or the Royal Jelly? :-P

Bassman, now you be the funny one, I've tried smiling before, it feels good!!!

So Annette, yes, I have actually tasted it, I don't like it, it tastes rather bitter.

Now you may recall me speaking of my dear Husband, never dare him to do anything, he will do pretty darn well anything, I kid you not.

My second year of beekeeping I was cutting out some queen cells for a friend and I damaged one. Conversations went on and I told him to try one. Being that dude that doesn't give a whit about taste or nothing (the funniest time was when he wanted to taste an Asparagus beetle to see what it tasted like, after a dare, it tasted like asparagus, by the way, hee, hee), he decided that he was gonna eat a queen cell. He did. He said, with that straight face he pull off, never letting on to anyone anything, smiling, that it didn't taste very good, kind of soury, :evil: :roll: :roll: :) :) :)

Enjoy this picture, enjoy the day, enjoy your life, love life, and best of all, great health wishes to us all. Cindi

josbees · November 12, 2008, 01:58:05 PM

Ewwww!

DennisD · November 14, 2008, 04:04:15 PM

The look on his face says everything I need to know and having said that, I have placed it in my "DO NOT TRY" list of things. :-D