Abstract Royal jelly (RJ) is a nutritionally rich secretion produced by the hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands of 5–15-day-old worker honeybees (Apis mellifera). Its bioactive constituents—primarily major royal jelly proteins (MRJPs), jelleins, royalisin peptides, and trans-10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid (10-HDA)—are associated with antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and metabolic effects. Apilarnil, a comparatively underexplored bee product obtained from lyophilized drone larvae (3–7 days old), is characterized by high levels of proteins, amino acids, and androgenic compounds. This study comparatively evaluated royal jelly and apilarnil in terms of chemical composition and protein profiles. Royal jelly contained significantly higher total protein levels (37.30 ± 0.03 g/100 g) than apilarnil (27.12 ± 0.11–35.53 ± 0.37 g/100 g; p < 0.05), whereas apilarnil exhibited markedly higher lipid contents (16.55 ± 0.99–20.67 ± 0.18 g/100 g) compared with RJ (5.87 ± 0.09 g/100 g). SDS-PAGE analysis revealed distinct electrophoretic patterns: RJ displayed approximately 20 protein bands predominantly within the 40–60 kDa range, reflecting MRJP dominance, while apilarnil showed around 25 bands, including characteristic low-molecular-weight fractions (14–18 kDa). These findings highlight clear compositional and proteomic differences, identify preliminary biochemical markers for apilarnil authentication, and provide a framework for further investigation of its functional properties.
Yukunc et al. (2026) studied this question.