This is different.
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/royal-jelly-isnt-makes-queen-bee-queen-bee/
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Interesting read.
Read the summary about 3 months ago which basically said the queen developed by withholding honey and pollen and concluded bees had developed genetic manipulation with diet - something medical researchers have been looking for for ages. This is a good expansion of that summary
So what explains how a worker bee can start to lay eggs when previously it couldn't? I would assume it is still living on honey.
She still has ovaries, just not well developed ones. If not inhibited by worker brood and queen pheromones, she can lay drone eggs and on very rare occasion, worker eggs.
Quote from: sawdstmakr on June 22, 2016, 12:27:42 PM
She still has ovaries, just not well developed ones. If not inhibited by worker brood and queen pheromones, she can lay drone eggs and on very rare occasion, worker eggs.
How does she lay worker eggs without sperm? I've heard of parthenogenesis in other insects, but not in bees (except the strain discussed in the article in the OP, of course). Do you have a source for that information? Not doubting it, really, but curious.
and if she laid a worker egg...and they decided to supercede her with that egg....you would get a queen that was the daughter of a worker....thats some interesting genetics.
Sounds sort of like a Cinderella story...royalty from common blood...I wonder if they have 6 little glass slippers ;-)
Little off topic but did a split ten days ago and went into the hive to find numerous queen cells, but one in particular caught my eye. It was smack dab in the middle of a small patch of drone cells? Transgender queen maybe?
>Do you have a source for that information?
It has been documented and observed periodically (and rarely) for 200 years or so. But here is a study on a strain that does it regularly.
http://resistantbees.com/blog/?page_id=1006
Thanks, MB. Very interesting.