> quoting from Amy Toth, et al
> "we found that diet quantity deprivation (restricted access to nurse bees) during the fifth instar of larval development resulted in decreased ovariole number."


The "5th Instar" is the key phrase in the above - the 5th instar would be between the 4th and 5th molts, so the period between the 4th and 10th day after the egg hatched.
The same paper pointed out that the period well before that (the 1st through 4th instars) is when the die is cast on "queen vs worker", citing Mark Winston and Weaver:

"Female honeybee larvae are reproductively totipotent (they can develop into either a queen or a worker) for their first 3–4 days of age (Weaver, 1957 [1] ). After this point, worker‐destined larvae can no longer develop into viable queens (Winston, 1987 [2])."

Just in case the "instar" nomenclature is unfamiliar or long-forgotten, the period between egg hatch and first molt is the "First Instar".  Successive near-daily molts occur for the next 3 days, the 5th and 6th molts happen after capping.

So, again, the claim that started this thread, that the difference between a queen and a worker was "starvation", "nutritional stress", or other synonyms is not supported by evidence offered.
Yes, nutritional stress does make for distinct differences between groups of workers, but it is a misnomer to state that workers are workers because they were "starved".
The worker/queen divergence happens far earlier - and we all know that, as only larvae of specific very limited ages can be used when grafting queens.

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