Curious as to the hive mind's collective thoughts on the recent scholarship asking whether a queen has both the ability and the inclination to modify eggs prior to oviposition based on it's intended function. I'm not sure we're quite there yet, but the research does seem to be pointing in the direction of the queen having the ability to modify egg size, methylation and protein content based on perceived colony status: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)30673-6? http://ojs3.uefs.br/index.php/sociobiology/article/view/5935/5734 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9146148/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9747152/ *********************************************** 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