Pollen, propolis and royal jelly

Besides honey, bees also produce royal jelly, pollen and propolis. Royal jelly production is a complex operation. The bee-keeper uses a beehive without a queen-bee. He introduces a small stick with a number of preconstituted queen-bee cells. Inside the cells there are newborn worker-bee larvae. The worker-bees, who cannot live without a queen, start feeding the larvae exclusively with royal jelly. Three days later, the royal cells are taken out of the beehive. The bee-keeper then eliminates the larval and sucks out the royal jelly with a small pump. To produce pollen the bee-keeper puts a trap in front of the beehive in the spring. The trap forces the bees to pass through round holes so that part of the pollen they collected falls into the trap's drawer. This loss spurs the bees to collect more pollen, which is essential for the growth of young bees.