I have seen comments in posts periodically with respect to winter bees being genetically different than the regular worker bee. That the queen lays some sort of special egg. If this is true, may someone please point to a supporting article or reference for this?
There is no doubt the physiology of the winter is different. However, my question/challenge is that does not mean it is at all genetically, anatomically, different. I always figured winter bees are just low activity fat gluttonous bees. Kept in the hive by weather so little excercise and not much else to do but nibble on resources, packing on weight while continuously reorganizing the pantry. .... Much like me in winter, drinking hot cocoa and downing bags of potatoe chips while moving bee equipment around the storage shops or sitting in the big comfy chair studying THHB. My 'fat-body' tends to swell in winter and goes lean and mean in the spring and summer. My genetics, anatomy, does not change but my physiology certainly does, Hey! - I am just like a Bee!
>with respect to winter bees being genetically different than the regular worker bee
Not genetically different but physiologically different. Winter bees have more fat bodies (vitellogenin) than summer bees. Perhaps they are fed differently or perhaps it?s something else about the time of year, the length of days etc.
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Oh so you're not out winter surfing in BC with Rick Mercer?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvosJJPfFPU
Hi HP, a couple of notes.
1. The genetics are identical in summer verses winter bees. Specifically, the DNA does not change.
2. The DNA is encoded differently, the major difference is the FatBody. Think of a butterfly and catapiller, exact DNA in both, just encoded differently. Encoding is everything!!!
A. The discovery of the FatBody by early biologists was named for appearance as the biologist did not know the function and it looks like fat, adipose tissue.
B. The FatBody produces cytochrome just like our own liver, therefore I equate the FatBody as the liver of bees. I am the only one to do this trying to enable beeks to under the FatBody.
C. The FatBody is a complex organ improperly named, the organ is NOT stored fat as in the usual sense of lipids, and losing weight.
[cytochrome 450 is a detoxification enzyme in bees and humans.]. A specialized enzyme made by the FatBody, not made by any fat cell. Fat cells are stored energy, long chains of carbon atoms, a simple cell, whereas the FatBody is an organ.
3. All DNA is every cell is the same for an individual, regardless of a finger or an organ.
A. The DNA in the human finger is exact same as the DNA of the kidney for a specific individual.
B. The DNA in the human finger is encoded differently than say the kidney, although the DNA is the same.
4. DNA is information, EXACT SPECIFIC information the only information found and in nature. A single cell contains more info than a super computer, packaged in an condensed area to small to be visible to the human eye.
5. Getting back to bees, the DNA is the same but encoding generates a different kind of bee on a molecule level although the bees look identical. The most know difference is the enlargement of the FatBody.
HP, I am no expert, I read from PubMed, to ascertain info of APIS species. I have tried to relay some basics of DNA but I am a bit antiquated so forgive my sloppy comparison or my crude explanations.
Blessings to All
Van
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Article I found in PubMed regarding the FatBody and encoding. I will read and discuss later if applicable.
Van
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I copy and pasted the below article for you convince. Another function of the FatBody. To produce proteins to stimulate the gustatory [food taste and foraging]in forage honey bees. Simply stated we understand nurse bees become foragers. The FatBody produces proteins that facilitate the conversion from nurse to forager by stimulating the taste buds of the bees thus a desire to forage.
Van
The Effects of Fat Body Tyramine Level on Gustatory Responsiveness of Honeybees ( Apis mellifera) Differ Between Behavioral Castes
Ricarda Scheiner et al. Front Syst Neurosci. 2017
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Abstract
Division of labor is a hallmark of social insects. In the honeybee (Apis mellifera) each sterile female worker performs a series of social tasks. The most drastic changes in behavior occur when a nurse bee, who takes care of the brood and the queen in the hive, transitions to foraging behavior. Foragers provision the colony with pollen, nectar or water. Nurse bees and foragers differ in numerous behaviors, including responsiveness to gustatory stimuli. Differences in gustatory responsiveness, in turn, might be involved in regulating division of labor through differential sensory response thresholds. Biogenic amines are important modulators of behavior. Tyramine and octopamine have been shown to increase gustatory responsiveness in honeybees when injected into the thorax, thereby possibly triggering social organization. So far, most of the experiments investigating the role of amines on gustatory responsiveness have focused on the brain. The potential role of the fat body in regulating sensory responsiveness and division of labor has large been neglected. We here investigated the role of the fat body in modulating gustatory responsiveness through tyramine signaling in different social roles of honeybees. We quantified levels of tyramine, tyramine receptor gene expression and the effect of elevating fat body tyramine titers on gustatory responsiveness in both nurse bees and foragers. Our data suggest that elevating the tyramine titer in the fat body pharmacologically increases gustatory responsiveness in foragers, but not in nurse bees. This differential effect of tyramine on gustatory responsiveness correlates with a higher natural gustatory responsiveness of foragers, with a higher tyramine receptor (Amtar1) mRNA expression in fat bodies of foragers and with lower baseline tyramine titers in fat bodies of foragers compared to those of nurse bees. We suggest that differential tyramine signaling in the fat body has an important role in the plasticity of division of labor through changing gustatory responsiveness.
Another article I studied suggest the FatBody accumulates iron and shape iron into tiny crystals that is suspected is the basis of the detections of the magnetic poles, that is the GPS system in honey bees.
The FatBody indeed is a major organ with many functions known and many more still to be discovered.
Blessings
Van
These extensive explanations of the fat body functions, along with the explanations of Dr Samuel Ramsey, (as he explained that varroa feed on this organ, or fat body), shed a much more clearer light and explanation of, and why, the symptoms of CCD. Great job Mr Van.
Thank you!
Some great reading to go with the hot cocoa.