Absence of Vitamin E in the Royal Jelly of Bees. ∗

Abstract

In 1925, one of the writers (K.E.M.) working under the direction of the late Drs. T. B. Osborne and L. B. Mendel at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, attempted to assay the vitamin E-content of the royal jelly of the honey bee, which is the substance necessary for transformation of worker larvae into the queen or sexually productive form. Due to the relatively small amount of material procurable at the time, and to the negative data obtained, the results of these studies were not published. Since that time, Hill and Burdett 1 in England, claim to have demonstrated the presence of appreciable amounts of vitamin E in this interesting substance. However, there are many obvious objections to the method of assay used, and to the interpretations of results obtained by the latter investigators. They assume in the first place that, in normal stock females placed upon an E-deficient diet at the time of parturition, the process of suckling the litter would completely remove the stores of vitamin E in the maternal tissues. The fallacy of such an assumption is clear to all those who have had experience in the experimental production of vitamin E-deficiency. Furthermore, they state that out of 3 rats receiving a daily supplement of 50 mg. of royal jelly over a period of 37 days, 2 females were able to deliver litters of fully developed young. Out of 4 other rats, 3 of which received 2 gm. supplements of honey and pollen and 1 of which received 2 gm, of worker larvae brood comb, daily, only 1 rat was able to come to term with delivery of 1 dead fetus. The 3 control rats, fed the E-deficient diet only, failed to conceive.