> ....but there sure is a lot of royal jelly when the queen cell is capped (you can see it through the plastic), and it's almost all gone by the time she emerges...

Are you suggesting that the pupa eats it? According to Laidlaw & Eckert: "Under favorable conditions , queen larvae always have an abundance of royal jelly and a surplus quantity is left in the bottom of the cells after emergence." I would suggest that the apparent reduction of the amount of royal jelly is caused by the dehydration that takes place during incubation.

PLB

             ***********************************************
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

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm