Visit to Learn about a New Royal Jelly Collecting System.

It was toward the end of 1998 when I visited Australia. It was time for bees in Japan to prepare for winter. Royal jelly production in Japan is generally a manual operation, from larvae transfer to jelly collection. Learning that a new system to collect royal jelly was developed in Australia prompted me to visit there. By contacting them through the Australian Embassy in Japan, I was able to visit the bee product manufacturer, Rainbow Family Pty. Limited. Mr. Lee, an Asian-Australian, welcomed me to Rainbow Family, which is located in Sidney. Mr. Lee, with a desire to work in the apiculture industry, became an Australian citizen. Helped by his knowledge of the episode of my father, currently Chairman of the Yamada Bee Farm, who started his research and development of royal jelly in order to try to save my sister from heart disease, we came to firmly promise to each other that we should "strive to produce high quality royal jelly for the health of people of the world through the cooperation of both companies." Mr. Lee explained the new royal jelly collection system. The square device (see the picture of me pointing to it) is the system which is to be placed in the middle of a hive to allow an automatic transfer of larvae from the artificial queen cells. This system reduces the amount of manual labor related to the collection of royal jelly and greatly increases efficiency. "Beekeepers are inventors everywhere you find them in the world," I thought to myself, remembering that my own father, with his passion for inventing new things, used to come up with his unique ideas as well.