Royal jelly…if you’ve not heard of it before, the name might sound strange – is a food or a foot cream? Actually, royal jelly is the substance that is fed to the Queen Bee of a beehive to sustain her throughout her life, helping her to give birth to millions of baby bees. Royal Jelly creates the Queen Bee ovaries and sets her up to reach maturation in a rapid 5 days, when she is ready to start laying those millions of future generations, up to 2,000 eggs per day! This is why Royal Jelly has been investigated as a fertility-boosting supplement.
A Queen Bee is double the size and weight of your regular worker bee and lives for 5 to 6 years, rather than just one month like the rest of her hive. So, if you are what you eat – royal jelly is clearly some seriously nutritionally-dense stuff! If it can do that for a Queen Bee, then what might it do for a woman?
Royal jelly as a fertility-booster
A study conducted in 2007 out of Japan discovered the royal jelly is similar to a phyto-estrogen and that it contains properties that might support healthy uterine muscles and uterus lining. There have been multiple studies with royal jelly on fertility in animals that suggest it has the potential to increase rates of pregnancy and support fertility overall.
Royal jelly is rich in amino acids, medium chain fatty acids (like those found in coconut oil), proteins, along with vitamin D, E, all of the vitamin Bs, plus iron and calcium. It also contains a range of probiotics.
Our bodies need nutrients and minerals to have healthy hormones, healthy cycles and regular, healthy ovulation if we are to be fertile and able to get pregnant. Royal jelly packs a hugely powerful nutritional punch, containing nearly all of the vitamins and minerals a woman’s body needs to conceive successfully. Royal jelly as a supplement is incredibly potent – in taking a small amount daily you are getting a good dose of all the necessary nutrients. I have long preached the gospel of feeding your body the right foods for strong fertility, and royal jelly fits right in as containing high levels of many key nutrients.
(It’s important to note here that if you are allergic to bees/bee venom or if you have estrogen-sensitive reproductive cancers in your family history, you should avoid royal jelly.)
The benefits of royal jelly
The benefits of royal jelly make sense to me, from the perspective of someone who has helped many women conceive naturally partly through dietary changes. In order to be fertile and conceive women need:
- Vitamin D for strong immunity
- A healthy gut and absence of harmful bacteria anywhere in the body (maintained by probiotic foods)
- Vitamin B6 for boosted progesterone levels
- Amino acids for hormone production
- Fatty acids for egg growth
- Proteins for hormonal balance
…and royal jelly contains all of these elements in high doses. That’s not to say that royal jelly is the only place you can find these nutrients, definitely not, but it is a simple and easy way to boost your vitamin and mineral levels, along with your intake of probiotics, fatty acids and protein, when you’re trying to conceive.
Royal jelly vs. honey
Although both royal jelly and honey are strengthening to the immune system, good for your skin, and anti-inflammatory – honey does not have the fertility boosting properties of royal jelly. Honey is an ancient remedy for low libido, because it contains boron, which is certainly handy when it comes to getting pregnant, however if you’re looking for those fertility benefits, royal jelly is for you.
My royal jelly smoothie recipe to boost your fertility
So, how to take royal jelly? I find the best way to incorporate this into your diet is via a weekly smoothie. Alone it can taste kind of bitter.
Try my “Queen Bee Smoothie.” Just add these ingredients to a food blender or smoothie maker, whizz, and you’re ready for a fertility boosting, tasty treat. You’ll also be getting a big boost of folic acid from the spinach, a whole host of vitamins and minerals from the fruit, plus zinc from the sesame seeds.
1 cup fresh Spinach
1/3 cup fresh or frozen Mango
1/4 cup fresh or frozen Blueberries
1 Teaspoon Royal Jelly
3 Tablespoons Coconut Yogurt
Pinch of Cardamom and Ginger
¼ cup of Coconut water
1 T white or black Sesame seeds (bonus points for grinding them in a spice grinder first!)
½ Teaspoon Honey
Always remember, that once you have the right information about how your body really works, you can start making health choices that finally start to work for you! You can do this – the science of your body is on your side!
to your FLO,
Alisa
Good things come in threes:
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Is there a particular retailer or brand of royal jelly that you recommend?
Local suppport local farmers
Where can I find royal jelly?
Your health food store, or online!
Alisa
Where would you even buy Royal jelly?
Your local farmer market or local bee keepers are the best place for that.
Which phase would be best to take royal jelly?
Where would you buy this and is it expensive??
Asthmatics should be careful with royal jelly. It can induce attacks in some people.
Are you aware of the process used to extract royal jelly? Often queen bees die in the process. There is a world shortage of queen bees, especially this year with climate challenges. Queen bees are having problems with fertility and many are just disappearing. It seems an irony you recommend a natural product with no mention of the damage done to offer it for human purchase. Do you have a regard for the environment and other forms of life, especially hose that are struggling with survival and have fertility problems of their own?
Hi Christina,
I am intrigued by your reply and where you may be getting this information from?
I am a beekeeper and work with the extraction of Royal Jelly during the season. It may be unique to my company but it is of upmost importance that we protect the Queen bee & her colony, royal jelly is a by-product of beehives and it can be extracted safely without causing any harm to the bees. I guess this could be a PSA that consumers should study where their royal jelly (or any food for that matter) is coming from and if it is being collected in an ethical manner.
I would recommend buying from companies who produce their own royal jelly (not bought from an exterior supplier), question the company as to where they source their royal jelly.
Hi, may I ask how can I purchase the Royal jelly from you please? I live in Asia and would like to buy from a ethical company. Thank you!
Are there any alternatives to taking royal jelly not in a smoothie? I’m a bit tired of smoothies. I tried taking it straight but it was gross.
Hi Kimberley,
You can take fresh Royal Jelly orally, it just has a bitter taste. You can also find Royal Jelly mixed into honey to create a blend or some companies sell Royal Jelly in capsule form. I personally prefer fresh or with a honey blend because to me it guarantees freshness and avoids any fillers that may be put into a capsule
I have a facial product made from royal jelly that I love but the truth is it’s hard on our already struggling bee population to use royal jelly. What to do? We need the bees to prosper.
Alissa,
Do you know whether royal jelly is still helpful and/or compatible for women who will also be taking hormones and clomid? We are inseminating in a couple weeks and am doing the same course of action that got me pregnant super fast last time – 3 days of clomid 3 days, estrogen 3 days (can’t recall the exact cycle days off the top of my head), and then progesterone following insemination. I like to do all I can to help the process, but obviously I don’t want to do something that would negatively interact. Thoughts?
Having had read that fresh Royal Jelly is most stable and effective preserved in natural honey, I have been taking Royal Jelly and Bee Pollen in a raw honey. However, I have just found I have low progesterone, which is adversely effected by sugars. I avoid all sugars except this Royal Jelly raw honey. Should I take Royal Jelly in a capsule instead?
Hi,
I would avoid the raw honey, and focus on other foods, blood sugar balancing, micronutrient therapy etc to support your body to conceive!
Alisa
Can you take royal jelly in additions to a prenatal vitamins, chastate berry and coq10?
Hi I’m Trying to find the health amounts of Folate certain ingredients and foods have. Can you possibly give a break down of how much Folate Royal Jelly actually has? I’m trying to find a supplement that contains enough folate without taking prenatals.
So for fertility boosting effect we only need to take Royal Jelly once a week?
How often should Royal jelly be taken? I have read conflicting things. Some say a capsule a day others say Cycle day 1 up to ovulation. Please advise what’s best.