Royal jelly

Definition

All honey bee larvae are fed royal jelly for their first few days. Those destined to be queens continue to receive it throughout development, and that dietary difference — not any difference in the egg — produces a larger, longer-lived, fertile insect from identical genetic material. It is one of the clearest demonstrations of developmental plasticity in any animal.

Where the word gets used loosely

Marketed as a human supplement on the strength of what it does to bee larvae. The reasoning does not transfer: a substance that redirects insect development says nothing about its effect on an adult mammal that digests it.

Guide records that discuss this

• The other hive products: beeswax, propolis, royal jelly and bee pollenFour substances a colony makes or collects besides honey, each with a real biological function and a marketing story that runs well ahead of it. Here is what each one actually is.
• Is honey vegan?By the standard definition, no — and the argument is more interesting than the answer. It turns on what beekeeping actually does to bees, where the evidence is clearer than either side usually admits.
• Royal jelly and how a queen is madeA glandular secretion that turns a genetically ordinary larva into a queen. What it does inside the hive is remarkable and well established; what it does in a capsule is neither.
• Hive products in traditional medicineHoney, wax, propolis, pollen, royal jelly and venom have all been used medicinally. This is what each was used for, what is proposed to explain it, what the clinical evidence shows, and where the risks are.
• What honey bees eat, and the bacteria in their gutNectar is fuel and pollen is everything else. A honey bee also carries a small, specialised community of gut bacteria that it catches from its nestmates in its first days of life — and that antibiotics and at least one herbicide can disrupt.

Question records that discuss this

• Can you be allergic to honey?Yes, though it is uncommon. Reactions are usually to pollen or bee proteins carried in the honey rather than to the sugars, and they range from mild oral itching to, rarely, anaphylaxis. Bee pollen and royal jelly cause severe reactions considerably more often than honey does.