Royal Jelly

by 'Ah, Russell, what is to become of me?'

This piece occurs during the early period of Holmes and Russell's marriage: perhaps in the summer of 1921. It is in part inspired by the work of Roald Dahl.

It was hard not to notice and yet I, with all my learned powers at observation, did not notice: Holmes was up to something strange with the bees. He had been spending more time at the hives and less working on his constant experiments and his book. This had been going on for at least three weeks before I realized there was something out of the ordinary. At the time, we were still very early into our marriage. We were, to put it mildly, preoccupied with each other. We didn't spend as much time just talking and being together as we had in the past. There was this new dimension to our relationship and we were enjoying the fruits of marriage, much as any newlywed couple.

Finally, I said something to him over breakfast one morning. "What have you been doing with the hives?"

"What do you mean? I have been doing nothing to the hives."

"You know what I mean. I did not say you were doing anything to the hives. You are somehow preoccupied by the bees more than you have been in the past."

He looked at me and said, "You are quite right, Russ. I have been more interested in the bees of late. I am working on something. The next phase will include some experiments in the lab. Maybe you can help me with them. Until I am ready, however, I do not wish to tell you about it."

We had already agreed that we would not let our marriage change our personal proclivities to privacy and would respect that in one another. I answered him, "I should be glad to assist you in any experiments, as you have certainly aroused my curiosity. Let me know when you are ready."

I let the matter go and simply observed him more closely to see if I could figure out the secret. He was doing something with the queens. It involved drawing them out of the hive for short periods so he could collect something from the drones. I could tell this was a delicate process. The entire hive became quite disturbed when the queen was moved and even though he stunned them with smoke there was still visible agitation.

One afternoon in early September he asked me to follow him down to the lab. I had noticed him coming and going a great deal that morning as I sat at my desk and tried to concentrate on a particularly difficult translation. I was eager for a change when he beckoned me to follow him.

As we descended the stairs I looked down at the lab table. It was all prepared for work and he clearly had an assistant in mind because I saw two burners readied and a plethora of tubes aligned in two trays. It appeared we would be running the experiment in parallel. Holmes threw me a lab coat and then spoke, "We are trying to see if the substance at your station is somehow more potent than the one at mine. To ascertain this we will perform the experiment simultaneously."

"What is the substance?" I asked.

"Royal jelly," he answered.

"I do not know the term. What is it?"

"It is from the bees. It is the enriched nectar that is fed to the queens and enables them to grow so large and produce so many eggs. I have heard and read about it for years but never believed there was any validity to the claims made by its proponents."

He was working, prepping all the tubes with various amounts of the substance as he continued.

"Royal jelly is said to have all sorts of amazing properties. I did not believe all the claims so I have been running my own tests and trying to produce the most dramatic results."

"Ah," I answered. "Hence the rats you have been keeping. I had wondered what you were feeding them... some of them are amazingly good looking for rats."

"Precisely, although it is not for mere good looks that I am interested in royal jelly."

"Holmes!" I raised my voice and actually seemed to startle him for a moment. "What is this about? What are these magical properties and why in the world would you be interested in such a thing? It is far outside your usual lines of interest."

He answered me without looking up from his test tubes. "If you must know, it is about you."

"You are planning on force feeding me bee food?" I made this query with a great deal of irritation underlying my sarcasm.

"No. I plan to feed it to myself and see if it keeps me healthy and, well, younger." There was a moment of silence between us. It was awkward and I could feel the colour rising to my face.

"Good God, Holmes! I do not think of you as old. I do not understand. It is not logical."

He came over and wrapped his long arms about me.

"I know it isn't logical. I know it sounds strange coming from me. But damn it, wife mine, I do not want to waste a second of the time we have together and I will prolong that time if there is any way. I have waited so long for you and now that we are married I do not think my life could get any better. I do not want to leave you. I do not want to be old and ill and have you care for me while you are still a young woman. I... I... realize I am acting strangely. Don't look so worried. I just realized that with my chemical expertise and my beekeeping, I should investigate this one path and see if there was any truth to it. Believe it or not, the proof is stacking up on the side of the jelly. I think there really is some validity to the stories about this. I would not have carried it so far if there were no reason. I have not gone completely off my rocker."

I stared up at him and bit back some sudden tears. "Life will never be better for me either, husband. I just want you to know that whatever time we have together is worth any price I might pay in the future." This said, I kissed him hard and let my hands run down his chest. "I am amazed at this work of yours. I know you too well to dismiss it. Let me help you."

We drew apart and ran all of the experiments he had planned. At the end of the day he summarized his work thus far for me over glasses of honey wine, much like that we had shared the day we first met. It seemed that the properties of the royal jelly were indeed amazing. The rats Holmes had been feeding the royal jelly were twice as spry and twice as robust as those he had fed honey each day. Our experiments of the afternoon had included trying to reach a higher potency for the product by condensing it and deciding which hive contained the best sample. I asked Holmes when and if he planned to try the results on himself.

"After I run this new batch on the rats I think I shall try it myself. I need to be very careful as to the amount and strength. I would not want too much of a good thing. You might not be able to keep up with me." He looked at me and winked in an exaggerated sort of way that looked absolutely lewd when he did it.

"Good grief Holmes," I answered, "you do sound a bit crackers. Are you sure you have not already been trying the stuff?"

His answer was cold and edged with hurt, "I thought you said you trusted me."

"I am kidding you, you beast! Besides, I don't care how much of the stuff you take; you will never be able to keep up with Mary Russell Holmes." With this said, I threw the pillow in my chair at his head. He responded in kind and soon we were on the floor scrambling about like a pair of bear cubs. After he got me in a very decent headlock and pinned me to the floor he said,

"This old man keeps up just fine, young lady. Don't forget it was I who taught you all your tricks in the first place."

"I won't forget, I promise. And no more snide remarks about royal jelly; just let me go!" I was panting as I said this because he was on top of me (I had been struggling all the while) holding me down with his legs.

"You know, Mrs. Holmes, I think we should take all this physical exertion elsewhere," he spoke this with one hand pinning my forehead down and leaned over to kiss me as he finally let go my limbs.

"Agreed," I answered.

Several weeks later I was gearing up for a walk on the downs. I hollered down to Holmes in the lab to see if he wanted to go along. He appeared at the top of the stairs and said, "Not now, I think you really may want to see this; come down." I did as he bid and went down to look. What in the world? Holmes! You have an entire colony of rats in our basement. Does it ever occur to you that they may get loose and double the entire rat population of Sussex in a week?"

"Calm yourself, Russell. I needed them all for my ongoing experiment. I assure you that when I am done I will put them back in their natural habitat of London. Now come look at the control group and the group that have been ingesting the supercharged version of the jelly which we created a couple of weeks ago. Please note I have noted the age of each rat and its personal health history prior to putting them into one of the groups."

I walked over and looked. The control group, which had been consuming the normal version of the jelly, was looking bored and like normal rats. They looked healthy and attentive, but I noted that some of them were not completely mature. The test group, however, was busy. Each animal was engaged in some sort of activity; shredding paper, walking around, or looking for a way out. They also looked more robust. Their fur was shiny and they all had clear, bright eyes. I could tell this group did not consist of youngsters. The males were large and had gray whiskers. The females looked like lively little grandmothers of the rat variety.

"Well Holmes," I ventured, "obviously they like the supercharged version of the jelly over here," I pointed to the test group.

"It isn't just that they like it, Russ. The rats in the test group are twice as old as those in the control. I have been forced to re-populate the control group several times as the rats on that side die more quickly. And at a normal rat age. That is not the case, however, with the test group. The chaps over there are living longer. In fact, that one over there is the eldest of them all. He should be sleeping most of the time, but I caught him trying to mate with one of the old lady rats. And just yesterday, he got out and gave me a good run about the lab to catch him up again."

"O.K., so does this mean you are going to take the stuff?" I wanted to get to the heart of the matter as I still had my reservations.

"Be patient; I have not shown you everything." This said, he took my hand and walked me over to the test tubes.

"I have separated as many elements within the jelly as I can and analyzed the contents. The reason it is so different, this substance, is this." He led me to the microscope and indicated I should look at the plate that was there. I adjusted the lens and what I saw took my breath away. There was something dividing on the plate. I wasn't sure what it was but I could understand enough about mitosis to know that what I was witnessing was alive.

"It's dividing like a human cell. Holmes, what does it mean?" I was really taken aback.

"It means that it rebuilds cells. That is its secret."

"But what kind and how much, and is it a good thing?"

"I am not really sure of all the answers to tell you the truth. But I do know that as we age our cells degenerate. If this process helps them regenerate then that really is something worthy of our attention. I have noticed, however, that only our supercharged version of the jelly does this. The other kind just lies on the slide and does nothing."

"So you are saying that the concoction we have here is unique?"

"Yes. I believe so. I think it is somehow the perfect mix. No doubt the regular form does provide some benefit but this one is truly unique."

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I am going to take it and see what happens," he said.

All I can tell you, dear reader, is that it worked. Holmes felt the effects of the serum within the first fortnight of taking it. I teased him about suddenly feeling more attracted to bright flowers or something but he took it in stride this time. He said the results were worth any darts I might throw at him. Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft and Uncle John also began a course of the serum once we convinced them. Several years down the road Holmes pointed out that at some point I might want to take the stuff too. And I did. And I do.