Listen here to an indepth interview with Sean about this Bee Manna.
Royal Jelly is a substance produced by bees. When the worker bees want to make a Queen Bee, they feed a larva copious amounts of Royal Jelly. The Queen Bee is very different from the other bees in the hive, and this is a direct result of being fed Royal Jelly, there are no other factors involved. The Queen has active ovaries while the other bees are sterile. Once she is fully grown she can produce up to 2000 eggs a day; it is her role to populate the hive. She usually lives over three years; up to 45 times longer than worker bees who live for 6 weeks. She is also up to twice the size of a worker bee.
For obvious reasons then, Royal Jelly is a great supplement for pregnant and breastfeeding women, or anyone having issues conceiving. It has been used to treat a wide variety of health problems. It provides excellent anti-aging protection for the skin when used both internally and externally. It is known to help with depression and mental health issues. It's a fantastic supplement to give to teenagers to calm adolescent anxiety and make them feel more comfortable about growing up.
Immortality Alchemy's Royal Jelly powder, or 'Bee Manna' is one of the most vibrant, sacred, and nutritionally complete foods on Earth. This Royal Jelly is sustainably and humanely harvested. Royal Jelly Bee Manna is a supreme beauty food and powerful hormonal rejuvenator.
HOW TO USE: it's potent so while you can eat it off the spoon, it's not to most peoples' taste. We suggest putting it in your smoothy, hemp or nut milk, on cereal, mixed in your chia with lucuma, in yoghurt if that's what you like, or anything similar - you get the idea :-)
Raw Royal Jelly Powder (Bee Mana) is shelf stable, no refrigeration necessary, it has the highest potency and purity of any royal jelly available anywhere, and the only Certified Organic Royal Jelly on the market (though at the moment we need to import it without its Organic label due to regulations). Immortality Alchemy have been able to drastically reduce the cost of making this Royal Jelly available by reducing its water weight before it is shipped (not to mention its spoilage rate). A 5 oz jar is equal to almost a full 16 oz of fresh (liquid) royal jelly. Plus it is actually fresher, considering it is dried just a few hours out of the hive, rather than being frozen, dethawed, and refrozen (common since it has to maintain a constant state in cold shipping / storage).
Most importantly, it has human active B-12 in it. Even though the product is not technically fully "Vegan", it is humanely harvested and the bee's are allowed a break (as they normally would) from production during the late fall and winter months. The practices involved in the apiaries are those of smaller farms, as most of the royal jelly is collected from farmers collectives that adhere to certain agricultural practices. The rest is collected from Organic Tea Plant (Camelia Sinensis) farms.
The royal jelly is processed at low temperatures to wick away the moisture and reduce the water content. In this capacity, the producers are able to achieve a concentration of 10-HDA, the main active compound in royal jelly responsible for many healing effects. It is concentrated to at least 5% by weight ( average up to 5.5%). Normal liquid royal jelly, as it comes straight out of the hive has between 0.6% to 1.2%, depending on the season.
Our royal jelly is collected from the inland regions of China, at least 10 to 15 km from any form of industiral activity. The primary regions are tea plant (camelia sinensis) farms and other various medicinal herb farms. Farmers who participate in the co-op which we get our royal jelly from collect their royal jelly and within 4 to 6 hours of collection from the farm, the royal jelly undergoes the process by which it is flash dried at low temperatures (below 102 F). Around 450 different farms collaborate by adhering to standards set up by the centralized collection facility. There is a complete system of accountability for being able to trace back batches to their origin to test for contamination or if any batch comes up positive in any test for any kind of chemical, pesticide, etc.
Apiaries are always located on hillsides where it is quiet, as any major industrial noise affects the bees habitation of the area. All bees are kept away from any large crops that could potentially be sprayed or be of GM variety (soy, wheat, corn, beets, etc). One major question that is asked is "How do you stop a honey bee from flying here or there?" The answer is pretty simple. If a bee has more than enough to collect from in their local vicinity, they essentially have no need to travel so far. This is how we are able to ensure, as a first step, that our product maintains purity.
All water in the surrounding areas are assured to be at least up to the level of drinking standard (human consumption). Only farmers with at least two years of experience are selected by the co-op to be able to produce for our supply. Each and every month a small review is held to update farmers on any new techniques that may be available for them to utilize. Each farm has a refrigeration unit that allows any harvested royal jelly to be kept in stasis until it is picked up.
In 2002 there was a very heavy ban on many Chinese products. Even most Organic products were affected and the entire honey and bee product industry halted. The levels of streptomycin and chloramphenicol were altered from their former levels of 50 parts per billion and 10 parts per billion, to 20 parts per billion and 0.1 parts per billion, respectively. Because of this many bee farmers were put out of business as they could not conform to the high standards the EU had put in place (in partnership with EcoCert and several other certifiers). The co-op was one of the few to be able to pass all the litigation that ensued afterward and so was held to a much higher esteem than before.
Many business practices were changed at this time. All farmers were required to change from metal tools to wood or plastic ones ( to avoid any heavy metal contamination) and to remove any metal nails from their bee hives. The co-op partnered with a local university and developed a way to completely omit any kind of anti-biotics from the care for the bees. The process they developed is confidential, however the proof is in third party testing in that over 250 compounds that we tested for on our own, they all came up negative. No other royal jelly on the market can claim this.
In spite of modern industrialization, the vast majority of China and Chinese culture is concerned with the harmonizaiton with nature. This has been their way of life for the past several thousand years and continues to be such for the peoples who live in more rural areas of the country. As such, the farmers have a tendency to want to also abide by these "Laws of Nature", understanding that if we are to spray our crops and feed our bees anything but their natural diet, we will become out of balance with them. One example of this is how conventional be farmers have practices that tend to disrupt the natural cycle of the bees. One is when the bees normally want to hibernate for the winter. This is a natural process that allows the bees to rest. There is nothing for them to collect anyways (in most parts of the world) so it would make sense that they feed off the pollen and honey they have stored up for the Spring, Summer and Fall. Conventional bee farming practices, instead, keep the bees working by continually taking from their supply and feeding them sugar water (also called "Simple Syurp") in place of allowing them to collect nectar from flowers or eat their own honey. While this allows for a year round supply of bee products, it also does several other things. One, it produces an inferior product (royal jelly potency goes down, honey sugar ratios get out of whack and loose much of their natural antibiotic effect and the bees produce far less of both). Two, it hurts the bees immune system. Like any other animal, including humans, when you feed bees straight sucrose (table sugar derrived from beets, corn or sugarcane), they have immunocological reactions to having such high spikes of free roaming sugar. This could well be a major contributing factor to the colony collapse disorder that has been happening around the world.
Our bees are allowed to rest through the winter so that they may be very vigorous and active for the next season. No products are taken from their hives in this time and they are fed with organic bee pollen, if any extra is required. Royal jelly and bee pollen are collected form Spring to Summer, which is when the main marker of the quality and potency of royal jelly (10-HDA, or 10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid) is at its highest. Before harvesting any royal jelly, all tools are sterilized with 75% alcohol to ensure no microbial contamination enters the hives (which is a leading cause of mites and other sorts of vermin that get onto the bees and kill them or disrupt the hive activity). The typical time frame from royal jelly collection to processing at the main facility is about 1 to 2 hours, but never more than 4 to 6 hours away. This might seem like a long distance but it is due to the hills and mountinous terrain that cause the long time to reach the final destination.
Now, as for the nutrition of royal jelly and aside from anything about the purity of the product, it is an incredibly packed food. At the top of the list are how it affects the brain and nervous system. Some studies have indicated it is useful in the production of neural stem cells and glial cells. These are both important in the protection of the brains neurons and critical to upkeep.
Overall cognitive capacity was noticed amogst those who take it over a long period of time. This may be due to several factors, from B-Vitamins present to things like acetylcholine and inositol. These also may lend to increases of leaning, memory, motor function and awareness due to the presence of these phospholipids. Acetylcholine also affects synaptic plasticity (the ability of the connection between two neurons to change in strength). This is important in the learning process and short term memory. It has been shown to help Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Royal jelly has been shown to improve the immune system by increasing the effectiveness of white blood cells. Some of these studies on immunocological activity were done on patients with Grave's disease and herpes. 10-HDA, the unique compound found only in royal jelly in nature, shows anti-tumor properties in that it reduces the blood supply to the tumors (decreases tumor vascularity), thereby helping to shrink tumors. Royal jelly also exhibits an insulin-like effect, this may be due to its protien content or another compound that is as of yet, unidentified. Due to its high level of albumin (according to Dr. David Jubb is the body's premiere "super transportation protein") and its ability to help transport nutrients across cell membranes, royal jelly has been shown to help the calcium uptake by the body, as shown by studies done in rats.
Royal jelly also contains small amounts of PABA (para-aminobenzoic acid). This amino acid has been shown to help the body use protein more efficiently. This may also be responsible for increased hair growth and restoration of hair color and shine (again, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine). Royal Jelly contains DHEA, a powerful anti-aging hormone implicated in reversing many of the signs of aging.
Royal jelly also contains appreciable levels of naturally formed collagen and bioavailable zinc. Most likey due to these nutrients presence, royal jelly has long been known for its effect on skin, keeping it soft, smooth and young. This is true of both topically applied and internally consumed royal jelly. Royalsin, a unique protein found in royal jelly, has been shown to have antimicrobial activity against gram-positive bacteria. Gram positive bacteria include staph and strep species.
There are other benefits to taking royal jelly, especially on an energetic level. For one, royal jelly is considered a Yin Jing tonic. In TCM this means that it affects the Kidney system, adrenals, ears, hair, knees, lower back, bones and marrow (which in TCM includes the brain, also called the "Sea of Marrow").
To find out more about Bee Manna, listen to our interview with Sean Gardner of Immortality Alchemy here.
