Jim quoted: "Insects have no mechanism to 'grow' their cuticle."  Books I have read (I'd guess the most "authoritative"  would be Dade's "Anatomy and Dissection of the Honeybee") do not
> mention any ability to "grow" a larger head or thorax.
> Bill said: "Is the exo-skeleton segmented or continuous?
> > If it is segmented, which I believe it is, that would allow for some
> > expansion or growth."

The question is whether the thorax can expand.  Apart from Dade, Anatonmy and Dissection of h Honeybee, 1962 there is the heavier Snodgrass, Anatomy of the Honeybee, 1956 -   330 pages. The thorax consists of 4 segments, fused in the adult - but at what age?  Fusing makes the thorax strong enough to take the forces of the wing muscles - but bees do not fly for the first few days, the same days young bees feed up on pollen.  Maybe the thorax is like a baby's skull - the plates do grow a little before fusing?   Neither Dade nor Snodgrass appear to to mention differences between day old and week old bees. 

Jim again: " But heck, take two eggs, feed one more, and you get a queen from it.
> From the other, you get a worker. I don't really know exactly how that works, either."

Not quite like that.  According to Snodgrass, Weaver in 1955 fed larvae unlimited brood food but failed to produce queens. Weaver suggested the bees add something special to suppress worker characteristics in queens - or an inhibitory hormone may be produced by the queen itself but had not been found by 1956. Snodgrass emphasised that "The problem of caste determination is not one of rich feeding but of bilateral inhibition" as workers also inhibit some queen characteristics (which can still develop later to some extent in queenless colonies). 

In contrast, a bumble queen still retains all worker characteristics - honeybees have been able to evolve further into specialisation of the castes as they over-winter as colonies and the queen is never required to do all duties herself

Robin Dartington 
 

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