An interest piece of research on the development of queens and worker bees.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A closer look at how honey bee colonies determine which larvae will serve as workers and which will become queens reveals that a plant chemical, p-coumaric acid, plays a key role in the bees' developmental fate.

The study, reported in the journal Science Advances, shows that broad developmental changes occur when honey bee larvae - those destined to be workers - are switched from eating royal jelly (a glandular secretion) to a diet of jelly that includes honey and beebread (a type of processed pollen).

Beebread and honey contain p-coumaric acid, but royal jelly does not. Queens feed exclusively on royal jelly. Worker bees known as nurses feed the larvae according to the needs of the hive.

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Science Advaces: A dietary phytochemical alters caste-associated gene expression in honey bees. 28/8/15

http://advances.sciencemag.org/conte.../e1500795.full