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Study 133 - Royal Jelly (Patreon)

Published:
2025-06-12 22:15:17
Imported:
2025-06
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Content

It's a strange story of strange sustenance: Royal Jelly by Roald Dahl!

Special thanks to reader Rachel Lackey!

Next up: Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?

Comments

Kyle the Ecuadorian

Chad as a Bee: This isn't worth it. We're working too hard. I don't want to do ANY of this. I want to throw my young in here and go enjoy my four or five months—ya know? See a movie..." (somewhere a man's ears perk up) Jerry Seinfeld: Have I got the FILM for you.

Steve

I really don't like Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. There's a tone to much of his writing that I find unpleasant although it's hard to put a finger on it. It might be cruelty, or lack of empathy, I'm not sure. But that won't put me off listening to the episode.

Steve

Or maybe it's his stories don't hang together.

Sanjay Mathew

'Guinness is good for you' was their tagline for much of the 20th century https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=2488 (scroll down to entry number 6) The ad copy (in Malay) 'A glass of Guinness opens up the appetite, gives you energy because every glass of Guinness has nutrition which gives your body benefits. Yes, after work, when you're tired or when you lack appetite, there's nothing better for you than a glass of Guinness Stout'

It's a Ghost.

I laughed so hard when Albert said, "The workers are all females. So is the queen, of course. But the workers are unsexed females, if you see what I mean. Their organs are completely undeveloped, whereas the queen is tremendously sexy." #TremendouslySexy

Jb Lee

There is ONE Dahl story I don't like and I've seen it dramatized on WAY OUT, LATE NIGHT HORROR, and TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED, so I'm guessing it was one of Dahl's favorites of his own work. It's titled WILLIAM AND MARY. But I've always liked ROYAL JELLY.

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

As with many horror stories, I think it's easy to read this as a riff on drug addiction. Was it the bee product or does this have more to do with the fields of poppies the bees feed on?

Akeel1701

Yeah I first came across this story in Tales of the Unexpected

Richard Horsman

I’m with Chad. This feels like Dahl stopped with one more draft to go, especially all the back and forth dialogue that takes a long time to go anywhere. There’s authors who can do that well, but it’s not a strength for Dahl. Good creepy idea at the center of it though.

Bryce Perry

Minor correction: Albert took Royal Jelly to become virile, not fertile. Same basic thing but the terms are gendered.

Christine M

Man, the terror of parenting a child with feeding difficulties was the most effective thing about this! It brought me right back to the emotions of trying to help my kid when no medical professional knew anything useful. (Turns out she had ARFID, a disorder not defined until she was in fifth grade!) I would have been susceptible to a Royal Jelly Cure if it was pitched at the time. (She's doing great now as a young adult, and a Queen in her own way!)

Jim Cannon

Ah, imperiled children, Roald Dahl's bread and butter! That poor kid, turning into who knows what, because her father is a... I'm not even sure what he is. Not a mad scientist, not fully sane or responsible adult either. A mad farmer, maybe? Mad beekeeper, certainly.

Wulf Mungus

I have to agree, this story shoulda been one way or the other not both.. the "just then" revelation that he kinda looked like a bee and was "buzzing" around the book shelf really took me out of it

Our old pal Brendan Gardiner

I like how people consume things like shark fin in the full confidence that the product will impart only the most desirable quality of the animal on them. No one eating shark fin considers that they might develop a vanishingly low intelligence and the inability to stop swimming lest they suffocate.

Allison Albright

I thought the comments about the marriage were really insightful. I'm not sure the story really accomplishes what it seems to set out to do, but it does tap into something really disturbing about this kind of betrayal by a spouse.

ESTY

apiarist absurdus

ESTY

Off screen- an audible *snap* Moments later Chad bursts through the door and slaps money on the kitchen island “I’m out!”

Gideon Falcon

The worst part about the conflicts that naturally arise with doctors, as you discussed, is how, once someone gets burned badly enough, they become incredibly vulnerable to the most blatant scams, like "Alternative" medicine. It's exactly this kind of feeling, that you KNOW something that the experts disagree with, that primes people to believe that, no, their child was NOT autistic before they were vaccinated, no, the essential oils DID cure your ailment faster, not some "placebo" effect. It combines with the even more prevalent frustration with the financial side of medicine, given the abysmal state of health insurance in the US, that drives far too many people to side with paranoia, pseudoscience, and anti-intellectualism.

Ethan Cordray

Yeah, it sort of felt like two different drafts of the story, smudged together: in one version, the husband comes up with a crazy plan to dose the baby based on pure speculation, and in the other version he's been taking the stuff for months and is deliberately initiating the baby into his bee cult. Either story would be better than this half-way version.

Jason Zuleger

Bees are fascinating! I know there are fans of graphic novels in this group so I'd like to recommend The Way of the Hive (fka Clan Apis) by Jay Hosler. It's geared toward kids but can be enjoyed by anyone. I love Hosler's cartooning but he also tells an interesting and humorous story while dropping plenty of bee facts. I don't recall if there's much about royal jelly. Regardless, I would recommend it to any fellow apiphiles.

Haylen Brenagh

Oh I was so tempted to buy a jar of Royal Jelly honey at the organic grocery store this afternoon, but at $41 for just a few ounces, I just couldn't gin up enough buzz to manage it!