I am behind with my reading of the B-List but thought I could bring some of Peter Deaden's (Otago University NZ) research forward.
Otago University was one of the universities that took part in the sequencing of the bee genome and since then has been assisting with the Better Bees breeding programme in NZ.


Biased gene expression in early honeybee larval development
Rosannah C Cameron, Elizabeth J Duncan and Peter K Dearden*

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/14/903

Results
To understand how these trajectories are established we have generated a comprehensive atlas of gene expression throughout larval development. We found substantial differences in gene expression between worker and queen-destined larvae at 6 hours after hatching. Some of these early changes in gene expression are maintained throughout larval development, indicating that caste-specific developmental trajectories are established much earlier than previously thought. Within our gene expression data we identified processes that potentially underlie caste differentiation. Queen-destined larvae have higher expression of genes involved in transcription, translation and protein folding early in development with a later switch to genes involved in energy generation. Using RNA interference, we were able to demonstrate that one of these genes, hexamerin 70b, has a role in caste differentiation. Both queen and worker developmental trajectories are associated with the expression of genes that have alternative splice variants, although only a single variant of a gene tends to be differentially expressed in a given caste.

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I also produce a few queen for myself but believe you get better acceptance and more royal jelly in the cells if you pre-feed the bees pollen. Steve Taber used to put collected pollen in trays next to the cells but I found it was easier just to mash up a quarter frame of stored pollen with honey and dribble it over the frames a couple of days before adding the cells and again when I add the cell bars to my queenless nuc.

This way the nurse bees are primed and ready to feed the queen cells immediately they are introduced.

Frank Lindsay
New Zealand

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