Composition of Freshly Harvested and Commercial Royal Jelly

Abstract
Summary Royal jelly from Apis mellifera ligustica was examined by proximate analysis, amino acid analysis and chromatographic characterization of methylated fatty-acids using a pattern-recognition method. Crude protein was 11·9%, crude moisture 67·1% and crude lipid 4–3%. Amino acid analysis showed 17 standard protein amino acids and 5 unidentified ninhydrin-positive compounds. Aspartic acid was the major amino acid, at 16·1% of the protein content. The major fatty-acid, 10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid was present at an average concentration of 50·3% of the total fatty acid content. The gross composition of 11 commercial royal jelly products was compared to that of the pure royal jelly used in this study. Six commercial royal jelly products were found to be adulterated.

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