Good questions Bill. Let's use Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation for caste determination is that workers are simply starved queens. What they are starved for is total jelly, as well as supplemental sugar. I find the three recent studies that suggested that caste differentiation was a result of one of the above to all be questionable: 1. Quercitin in pollen, 2. Royalactin 3. Micr RNAs In the first place, I find little evidence that either queen or worker larvae need to be fed any pollen whatsoever. The royalactin hypothesis has been disputed by another study. The microRNAs in beebread may have nothing to do with the jelly actually fed to queen larvae. I would like to see a simple study performed by feeding larva nothing more that different amounts of jelly, with the group receiving more jelly also fed more sugar. There may also be an effect of the proportion of HP gland and mandibular gland secretions. If these simple factors differentiate caste, then we likely need to look no further. -- Randy Oliver Grass Valley, CA www.ScientificBeekeeping.com *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html