Haydak 1970, Woyke 1971, and recently He 2017, along with many others have essentially argued that the process of epigenetics which is responsible for the formation of queens, and workers for that matter, begins at the first instar with the first feeding and continues to affect gene expression for the next 72 hours, or so, after which developing a queen from older larvae is no longer possible. 

In all the morphometric measurements, queens from eggs have larger and longer thoraxes- a measurement that Tarpy correlated with superior queens. 
So my question is are there two different types of queens, those raised from eggs and those raised from larvae which in some respects are all intercastes?  Another thought is are we working with the best queens if breeders can only supply an intercaste queen? 

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