Royal jelly

[LaurieBee]

Can royal jelly be harvested? How exactly is it harvested? Is there a significant amount in products who claim to have royal jelly?

[marktrl]

Go to youtube and search "harvesting royal jelly"

[capt44]

Yes royal jelly can be harvested.
I buy mine from GloryBee in Oregan.
I use it to purge cell cups when grafting queens.
I've found that wet grafting the larva will float right off the tool rather than dragging it off using the dry method.

[LaurieBee]

Thank you Marktrl. The You Tube videos were helpful.
Thank you Capt. Your information is much appreciated.

How much royal jelly can be in a product? I've heard there isn't much at all. I suppose one should consider the source.

[greenbtree]

So capt, do you get a significantly better take on the grafting that way?

JC

[10framer]

i dry grafted the last round i raised and had terrible results. 

[Michael Bush]

With a chinese grafting tool they are all "wet" grafts... I used to collect royal jelly from errant queen cells, and prime the cells, but I didn't see any difference between that and using the chinese grafting tool.  But if you want to collect it for grafting purposes:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingsimplified.htm#c6

" Before grafting, a supply of royal jelly is necessary. Some very successful queen-breeders report they get satisfactory results without its use; but I have never been able to procure as large acceptance or as good strong queens without it. (Transcriber's note: Jay Smith changed his mind on this.) J.W. George of El Centro, California, gave to the beekeeping fraternity a valuable little kink when he explained that royal jelly can be bottled and kept in perfect condition from one season to another. I have practiced this to advantage, and find one of the great difficulties of queen-rearing is thereby removed.

If you have no royal jelly on hand, a colony may be made queenless until they build queen-cells, when you can get the jelly from them. After the first grafting, some of the jelly in a few cells you have produced may be used; but, in this way you continually destroy good queen cells.

As a container for royal jelly, I use a small porcelain jar with a screw cap. A piece of waxed cardboard in the cover makes it air-tight. Let me offer a suggestion as to where you can get one of these jars. Make a raid on your wife's manicuring outfit, and, if luck is with you, you will find one of these jars. To be sure that luck will be with you, better do it when she is out. This jar usually has some pink dope in it. Take this out, put it into a tin can, present it to your wife with your compliments and make off with the jar. Thoroughly sterilize this jar by boiling, for the bees seem to object to the funny smell that comes with it. If your wife does not have this, or if you do not have a wife, you can go to the drug store and find just the size and style that suit you. The dope looks as though it might be of use if you put it into the grease cups of your flivver, but I do not want to suggest too many dangerous experiments for you to try all at once. For a jelly spoon, I prefer to make one out of the bone handle of a toothbrush, which also may be found in the manicuring outfit. Break off the brush and whittle down the small end until it fits nicely into a worker-cell. This jelly spoon and the jelly jar are to be carried in the pocket of your trousers or dress, whichever you wear. While working with your bees during the season you will be running across colonies that have royal jelly to spare. Whenever a swarm issues, just take out the jar and spoon and get the royal jelly. I have found that I come across enough in my regular work so that I never have to make any special hunt for jelly. It is well to have two of these jars; keep one in your pocket and the other in the grafting room."--Jay Smith, Queen Rearing Simplified in 1923

Jay later changed his mind and said this:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#Shortcomings%20of%20the%20Grafting%20Method

"We used to prime our cells with bee milk but, after careful examination, believe it was a detriment, for the first thing the bees do is to remove all the milk we had put in. Grafting in bare cells is better-or rather not so bad. "--Jay Smith, Better Queens in 1949