I’ve had several emails over the weekend from people asking about the difference between fresh and freeze dried royal jelly. There’s quite a bit of info on this subject around our website and I’ll provide a couple quick-links at the end of this post. But to cover the subject briefly – this really is one of the most controversial topics that we encounter here and we do encounter it frequently.

Most people know that royal jelly is a creamy whitish/yellow substance when it leaves the beehive, but it’s what happens to it after removal which is important. If you’re going to deliver it to the consumer still in this ‘liquid’ form then it must somehow be stabilized. You can do this either by freezing it or adding some form of chemical preservative. However, and this is the big issue, if it is royal jelly which has been gathered overseas, which most of it is, and it’s being sold into the USA, it must first be pasteurized prior to export/import. This is really important – the companies who make a big deal out of selling you so-called ‘fresh’ royal jelly, are probably selling you something which has been heat-treated as part of the pasteurization process, a legal requirement of importing food products into the USA. We all know that high heat kills the live enzymes in any substance.

So what’s the best way to stabilize royal jelly? – quite simply there’s no more effective way to stabilize royal jelly than via the process termed freeze drying, or ‘lyophilization’. The process involves passing cold air across the liquid to evaporate the moisture, at which point it becomes stable and does not require pasteurization, nor does it require any form of chemical preservative.

So your choice is to -

A – Buy liquid royal jelly which appears and is marketed as “Fresh”, but has probably been pasteurized, or

B – Buy royal jelly in capsules which contains freeze-dried powder which has never been exposed to heat, and has all nutrient and enzyme content intact.

Here’s a link to an overview of fresh versus freeze dried royal jelly

Here’s another link to an article on royal jelly –

3,10-dihydroxy-decanoic Acid, Isolated from Royal Jelly, Stimulates Th1 Polarizing Capability of Human Monocyte-Derived Dendritic Cells
Food Chemistry
Different pharmacologically active components have been isolated from royal jelly. Some of them possess imunomodulatory activity, but the mechanisms of their effect on the immune system have not been elucidated yet.

In this study we tested the effect of 3,10-dihydroxy-decanoic acid (3,10-DDA), a fatty acid isolated from royal jelly, on maturation and functions of human monocyte-derived dendritic cells (MoDCs).

We showed that 3,10-DDA stimulated maturation of MoDCs by up-regulating the expression of CD40, CD54, CD86 and CD1a, and increased their allostimulatory potential in co-culture with allogeneic CD4+T cells. 3,10-DDA-treated MoDCs enhanced the production of IL-12 and IL-18, and stimulated the production of interferon-γ in co-culture with allogeneic CD4+T cells, compared to control MoDCs. In contrast, the production of IL-10 was down-regulated.

In conclusion, our results suggest that 3,10-DDA stimulates maturation and Th1 polarizing capability of human MoDCs in vitro, which could be beneficial for anti-tumour and anti-viral immune responses.

We know that 10 HDA is an essential measurement of royal jelly and its potency/quality. Studies have shown that royal jelly may have estrogen-like effects and the 10-HDA components may be significant to this.

Here’s a snippet from a research article with a link to the full article here

“Royal jelly (RJ) excreted by honeybees and used as a nutritional and medicinal agent has estrogen-like effects, yet the compounds mediating these effects remain unidentified. The possible effects of three RJ fatty acids (FAs) (10-hydroxy-2-decenoic-10H2DA, 3,10-dihydroxydecanoic-3,10DDA, sebacic acid-SA) on estrogen signaling was investigated in various cellular systems.”