From Ron Miksa's Bad Beekeeping Blog:

> In a nutshell, University of Illinois researchers have found that 
> pollen-based food called bee bread, given to larvae that become worker 
> bees, contains an acid that works as aDNA methylation 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_methylation>agent. Methylation of 
> DNA was discovered just a few years ago. It can shut off the way DNA 
> makes proteins, changing the way living things look, grow, and 
> function. Scientists think it controlsepigenetics 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics>(the way the environment 
> affects gene expression). This is nearly as important as DNA itself in 
> changing the future of a creature. Environment affects DNA methylation 
> which can turn off the way some genes work. So this new theory 
> suggests that an important component of the environment – diet – turns 
> off some genes in the female, suppressing their expression, resulting 
> in worker bees.

Anyone know anything about this?


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