Royal Jelly is a nutritional secretion from the honey bee that is used to feed larvae and adult Queen Bees.
It is secreted from the glands in the head of worker bees and fed to all larvae in the colony for 3 days.
When worker bees decide to make a new Queen for the colony they choose several small larvea and feed them with copious amounts of Royal Jelly. This feeding triggers the developmnet of Queen morphology, including fully developed ovaries needed to lay egs.
Composition: (taken from Wikipedia)
Royal jelly is collected and sold as a dietary supplement for humans, claiming various health benefits because of components such as B-complex vitamins such as pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) and vitamin B6 (pyridoxine). The overall composition of royal jelly is 67% water, 12.5% crude protein, including small amounts of many different amino acids, and 11% simple sugars (monosaccharides), also including a relatively high amount (5%) of fatty acids. It also contains many trace minerals, some enzymes, antibacterial and antibiotic components, and trace amounts of vitamin C,[2] but none of the fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E and K.[4]
