This study being discussed today challenges some beliefs that Royal Jelly has constituents that determine how a queen is differentiated from a worker during the larval period. The authors propose that the quantity of food, not the quality is what determines caste. The study has implications about the role of epigenetics and basically challenges most of Haydak's work on honey bee nutrition. But is it good science?
> In species that care for their young, provisioning has profound effects on offspring fitness. Provisioning is important in honeybees because nutritional cues determine whether a female becomes a reproductive queen or sterile worker. A qualitative difference between the larval diets of queens and workers is thought to drive this divergence; however, no single compound seems to be responsible. Diet quantity may have a role during honeybee caste determination yet has never been formally studied. Our goal was to determine the relative contributions of diet quantity and quality to queen development.
Diet quantity influences caste determination in honeybees (Apis mellifera)
Garett P. Slater et al.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.0614
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