>
> >My guess is that Darwin taught them to err on the safe side.


I'm with Chris on this point.  In my experience, you can get great queens
if she is fed just the right amount of royal jelly--none is left over. But
what I look for is to make sure that my cell builders feed an excess, which
to me is a visual verification that the queen larvae was offered more than
enough.

Once the queen larvae gives the "cap me over signal," she will soon begin
spinning a cocoon, and no longer be eating jelly.

Re queen differentiation, it seemed obvious to me the the queen is the
"default," and workers are merely starved and downregulated queens (to put
it simply).  I've been waiting for a study such as the one that Pete cited
to confirm this.


-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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