Queen bee larvae floating in royal jelly
What's the News: It's long been known that a female bee's place in the social order---whether she becomes a worker or a queen---depends not on her genes, but on whether she eats royal jelly
. A study
published in Nature found that royalactin, a protein found in royal jelly, is responsible for many of the physical differences that distinguish queens from the hoi polloi of the hive---and, surprisingly, that royalactin can even cause fruit flies to develop queen bee-like traits. This finding also shines light on how, at a cellular level, royal jelly turns bees into queens. How the Heck:
The researcher, Masaki Kamakura, stored royal jelly at just over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, for one, two, or three weeks, or thirty days, then fed it to be larvae. The bees raised on royal jelly that had been heated for 30 days developed into ...
