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- -10% for 3 individuals products purchased with code HIVER10Free delivery from 69€ of purchase IN FRANCE10% off our digestion products with code CONFORT10
- -10% for 3 individuals products purchased with code HIVER10Free delivery from 69€ of purchase IN FRANCE10% off our digestion products with code CONFORT10
A royal nutritional profile
If royal jelly displays a composition that makes other bee products look pale, it is in particular for its contents of 10-HDA (10-hydroxy-trans-2-decenoic acid) and specific proteins, the MRJP ("major royal jelly proteins "). These compounds give it its traditionally recognized benefits, in particular on the immune sphere. Our Royal Jelly can boast of having an exceptional nutritional profile with 1.4% 10-HDA and 14% protein.
French and local
Care and patience ... This is what the beekeeper lavishes on his bees and the production of royal jelly, and which makes it an exceptional product. Our French and Organic Royal Jelly is produced in the heart of the Puy-de-Dôme department, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, because why look outside our borders for a superior quality product that can be found nearby? From setting up and caring for the hives, to harvesting and potting, our partner beekeepers have all the know-how.
A royal jelly all laid out
While only 1% of the royal jelly consumed in France really comes from France, our Royal Jelly benefits from the authentic French Royal Jelly® certification, a mark of die-hard tricolor beekeepers of the Groupement des Producteurs de Gelée Royale. In addition to strict traceability, this label is also a guarantee of quality: a type 1 royal jelly, that is to say from a swarm exclusively fed with honey, fresh, non-frozen, not having undergone any transformation and refrigerated immediately after harvest to preserve its nutritional qualities.
The benefits of royal jelly are multiple.
The properties of royal jelly
Royal jelly is an exceptional product resulting from the hive and the work of bees: it is especially recognized for its benefits on immunity, bacterial activity and inflammation.
Compounds with recognized benefits
The virtues of royal jelly are said to result from its richness in specific compounds such as “major royal jelly proteins” (MRJP) and 10-hydroxy-trans-2-decenoic acid (10-HDA). Its unique nutritional profile continues to interest the scientific community.
Properties distinct from those of honey
Royal jelly is also differentiated from honey by its organoleptic characteristics: its flavor is more pungent, more acidic and less sweet, while its texture is liquid and milky in appearance. Protein and glycogen.
When to take our Royal Jelly?
- Royal Jelly is to be taken in the morning, on an empty stomach.
How many measuring spoon?
- Adolescents: from 12 years old, 1 measuring spoon (1 g) per day.
- Adults: 1 measuring spoon (1 g) per day.
- This product is suitable for pregnant and lactating women.
Duration of a dose
- Royal Jelly can go daily.
How to take our Royal Jelly?
- Let the contents of 1 measuring spoon of Royal Jelly melt under the tongue.
Duration of a pot
- The jar of our Royal Jelly lasts 10 days at the rate of 1 measuring spoon (1 g) per day.
- Shelf life upon receipt of the product and after opening: 1 year.
Precautions for use
- To be consumed as part of a healthy and balanced diet.
- Do not exceed the recommended daily doses.
- Do not consume more than 2 g per day.
- From 12 years old.
- Presence of potential allergens such as pollen.
- Do not heat or dilute in a hot drink.
Storage conditions
- The recycled cork packaging ensures a good conservation of our Royal Jelly during transport.
- The jar should then be stored in the refrigerator.
- The appearance of small aggregates is a natural and normal phenomenon resulting from the formation of small protein crystals. This phenomenon does not reflect any deterioration in the quality of the product.
- Royal Jelly from organic farming and certified Gelée Royale Française®.
Humans have always had a true admiration for the work of bees, and their social organization fascinates for the dedication and investment they show in their community.
Beekeeping also symbolizes patience and demonstrates an equally remarkable commitment. It offers access to exceptional natural products from this buzzing microcosm that is the beehive, such as the famous royal jelly.
The history of royal jelly [1,2]
The history of royal jelly can be learned through its discovery but also through that of beekeeping. The consumption of bee products would have started in the Neolithic (6000 to 2200 BC) with the harvest of honey from wild nests. It was around 2000 BC that Man is said to have created beekeeping, the oldest traces of which have been found in Egypt. The activity would then have spread through civilizations: in Central America with the Mayans, as well as in Ancient Rome. Among the products of the hive, honey represents the oldest nutritional discovery and its medicinal, antibacterial action in particular, has made it a very popular remedy, whether across the world, in Egypt or in China, or across the eras, from Antiquity to the present day, including medieval times and more recently in recent decades marked by episodes of war.
Royal jelly, meanwhile, would have been discovered more recently, although early writings mention its consumption as far back as Ancient Greece through the shredding of honeycombs. It was in 1672 that the German naturalist Swammerdam identified a kind of "white porridge" which would serve, like honey, as food for bees. In 1734, Réaumur brought to light that this substance was produced by so-called “worker” bees. Then it was in 1788 that it acquired its name of "royal jelly" thanks to the Swiss naturalist François Huber, because of the power of this famous "porridge" to turn larvae into queens. Finally, in the mid-1800s, the American pastor and inventor in beekeeping, Langstroth (he notably invented a beehive model), analyzed royal jelly and developed his business at the end of the 19th century.
Royal jelly, food for the hive [1]
The only food for future queens and hive larvae, royal jelly is also called “bee milk” for its white color, its thick and viscous texture, and for its nutritional richness.
Before making the royal jelly, the bees in the swarm must first build the alveoli (or cells) of the hive: royal alveoli (larger), on the one hand, for the larvae that become queen bees, and standard size alveoli, on the other hand, for other larvae in the colony that are required to become “workers”. Royal jelly is secreted by worker bees (Apis mellifera) also known as “nurses”, by means of their hypopharyngeal glands (at the level of the head). These bees fulfill their role of nurses only between their 5th and 6th day and their 15th day of existence. While the worker larvae of the swarm are fed royal jelly only during their first 3 days of existence, the future queens and queen are fed on it throughout their lives. The queen will live 2 to 5 years while a worker bee has a life expectancy of only 1 to 3 months.
Royal jelly, the beekeeper's treasure [1]
Naturally, the most royal jelly is found in the royal cells where future queens are raised, the equivalent of 6 days of food versus 3 for future workers. The egg is then in the larval stage and bathed in royal jelly. While the making of royal jelly is above all a natural process, its yield can be greatly increased with the careful intervention of the beekeeper.
To optimize the natural production of royal jelly, it follows a very specific method:
- First, it increases the capacity of the hive by installing additional artificial cells.
- Then, by isolating the bees in a compartment of the hive that the queen does not have access to, he also isolates their production of royal jelly. Thus, in the absence of the queen's pheromones and feeling orphaned, the bees dedicate themselves to feeding the larvae with the aim of raising a future queen. The beekeeper then carries out grafting, a rapid but also particularly meticulous process: he places a freshly hatched larva in an artificial royal socket.
- Finally, the last step, the lifting or harvesting of the royal jelly carried out manually in several steps:
- The scaling: or the elimination of the wax covering the cell,
- Delarvage: that is to say the delicate removal of the larva from the socket,
- Extraction: the collection of pure royal jelly by suction and filtration before being placed directly in the cold.
This meticulous work requires a lot of time and attention, and the widespread craze for royal jelly assumes a correlated increase in production. But at what cost ? Several months (from April to July depending on the location in France) are necessary for a colony to produce between 700 and 800 g of royal jelly. But this yield varies from one hive to another (it can be higher or lower) and the work of the beekeeper is also significant: it is estimated that the establishment of the production and the harvest of royal jelly (from the artificial alveoli of the larvae to the final harvest) require about 23 hours of work. On the other hand, this estimate does not take into account the time necessary for the regular care and maintenance of the hives (travel, rounds for reserves, winter preparation, veterinary care, etc.).
French royal jelly
The general public's demand for this substance with exceptional benefits intensified considerably in the middle of the 20th century. Royal jelly then became a part of many products and quickly the yield of conventional harvests via swarming could no longer meet this increase in demand. Thus, techniques have emerged to improve production yields. In France, however, the number of royal jelly producers is on the decline, even as competition from Asia is developing and becoming more and more aggressive.
In 2016, FranceAgriMer published interesting data on the beekeeping sector, and in particular on royal jelly [3]. The observation: the annual French production of royal jelly is estimated at 2 tonnes, while the average consumption of the French is estimated at 175 tonnes! And to answer this, most of the volumes consumed are imported from China.
But in France, beekeepers are getting organized! With the creation, in 1995, of the Group of Producers of Royal Jelly (GPGR), the brand Gelée Royale Française® [4] was created and allows to label the quality approach of beekeepers. Its rigorous quality charter guarantees:
- A pure French production,
- Respect for bees and the environment,
- A fresh royal jelly (with refrigeration after harvest),
- Pure royal jelly (without any transformation),
- Rigorous and controlled traceability.
The interest of the nutritional profile of royal jelly
Royal jelly has many traditional uses and its health effects continue to fascinate the scientific community [2,5].
The value of royal jelly is based on its composition and nutritional profile. If these characteristics vary according to seasonality, the place of harvest, or even the weather, it is however always composed of water, lipids, proteins, carbohydrates and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). Fresh royal jelly is estimated to consist on average of:
- Water: 65-70%
- Carbohydrates (glucose, fructose): approx. 14%
- Proteins: 13% including specific proteins (“major royal jelly proteins” or MRJP)
- Fat: approx. 4%
- Vitamins: especially group B
- Mineral salts and trace elements: copper, calcium, iron, sulfur, silicon, potassium, phosphorus
Royal jelly is therefore rich in proteins, and 80% of them are proteins called “major royal jelly proteins” (MRJP). Within lipids, we find a unique fatty acid: 10-hydroxy-trans-2-decenoic acid (10-HDA) [5,6]. Recent compilation works on the biological and pharmacological properties of royal jelly [7] show that MRJP and 10-DHA are among the main bioactive compounds of interest of royal jelly exerting effects on immunity, as well as bacterial and inflammatory activities.
The Nutri & Co choice: organic and French royal jelly
At Nutri & Co, we naturally chose to select:
- A royal jelly with interesting 10-HDA (> 1.4%) and protein (14%) contents.
- A short circuit organic French royal jelly (from the Puy-de-Dôme department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region). As mentioned earlier, China has taken a huge share of the royal jelly market by importing frozen form, so it seemed essential to us to favor a French royal jelly and from a short circuit.
- A pot format that allows packaging directly carried out by the producer and requiring little handling, and above all without any processing or additives.
- Royal jelly certified GRF® and from Organic Farming (AB). By complying with the GRF quality charter and the AB label, the bees in these hives are exclusively fed as naturally as possible thanks to honey and foraging activity. Conversely, imported royal jellies are often, on the one hand, derived from artificial feeding (which increases production yield), but are also most often frozen, which can potentially alter their nutritional quality.
Références
- Babin, M. La Gelée Royale, de Son Origine à Sa Valorisation Pharmaceutique, Université Angers, 2015.
- Fratini, F.; Cilia, G.; Mancini, S.; Felicioli, A. Royal Jelly: An Ancient Remedy with Remarkable Antibacterial Properties. Microbiol. Res. 2016, 192, 130–141, doi:10.1016/j.micres.2016.06.007.
- France AgriMer, F. apiculture LE MARCHÉ DE LA GELÉE ROYALE EN FRANCE - SYNTHESE; 2016; p. 4;.
- GRF LA GELÉE ROYALE FRANÇAISE DE QUALITÉ, PRODUITE PRÈS DE CHEZ VOUS Available online: https://www.geleeroyale-info.fr/.
- Khazaei, M.; Ansarian, A.; Ghanbari, E. New Findings on Biological Actions and Clinical Applications of Royal Jelly: A Review. J. Diet. Suppl. 2018, 15, 757–775, doi:10.1080/19390211.2017.1363843.
- Ramadan, M.F.; Al-Ghamdi, A. Bioactive Compounds and Health-Promoting Properties of Royal Jelly: A Review. J. Funct. Foods 2012, 4, 39–52, doi:10.1016/j.jff.2011.12.007.
- Ahmad, S.; Campos, M.G.; Fratini, F.; Altaye, S.Z.; Li, J. New Insights into the Biological and Pharmaceutical Properties of Royal Jelly. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21, 382, doi:10.3390/ijms21020382.
Our promise of transparency also involves the publication of quality analyzes:
Aquestion ?
Our experts answer all yourquestions.What is the Difference Between Royal Jelly and Honey
Honey is a substance swallowed and then regurgitated several times by bees from flower nectar. Royal jelly, on the other hand, is a glandular secretion from nurse bees (worker bees aged 5-6 to 15 days), specifically intended to nourish the larvae for the first 3 days of their life and to nourish the queen all her life. Thus, their composition varies and gives them distinct benefits.
How to consume royal jelly on a daily basis?
Our French and Organic Royal Jelly can be consumed every day. To consume it easily despite its strong taste, do not hesitate to mix it with yogurt, for example, or even to associate it with a little honey. On the other hand, avoid mixing it with drinks or hot preparations, which could alter its virtues.
What is the difference with other bee products?
- Royal jelly is a glandular secretion from bees that feeds the queen and the future queen larvae of the hive.
- Honey is a transformation of flower nectar by bees.
- Propolis is obtained from the harvest of tree resins and the salivary secretion of bees.
- The pollen is collected from the flowers by the bees which then form "balls" by deposits of saliva, honey or even nectar.
So many beehive products with different compositions and properties.
In what form is royal jelly the most effective (ampoule, capsules, pot ...)?
In jar and in its fresh form, royal jelly has not undergone any additional handling other than the steps necessary for its collection. Indeed, after harvest, the beekeeper puts it directly in a pot, which allows better conservation of its nutritional integrity and its active compounds. In addition, the French Royal Jelly® quality approach guarantees a production method via natural nourishment, for more authenticity and superior quality.
My royal jelly has crystals, is it still safe to eat?
Yes. These small crystals also called "aggregates" can develop. They result from the natural agglomeration of proteins contained in royal jelly. This natural phenomenon does not reflect any alteration of the royal jelly. This is actually a classic phenomenon.
I'm allergic to Pollen, is the a risk of allergy to your Royal gelly
Yes. In 2018, ANSES recalled that "people allergic to pollen can potentially present a risk of allergy by consuming foods and food supplements made from bee products". Royal jelly is therefore one of them.
Can we consume it all year round?
Yes. On the other hand, certain periods are more suitable for taking royal jelly, especially in autumn and winter, when immunity or tone are at half mast.
Where do our ingredients comefrom?
Production of royal jelly • Coop Royal French Jelly (COOPGRF) Mozac, France
COOPGRF is an approved agricultural cooperative. It is the only cooperative of French royal jelly producers. It brings together around thirty beekeepers who have created the French Royal Jelly® label, certifying quality and local royal jelly.