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Any female honey bee egg could become queen but almost all become workers. Why?


“You are what you eat.” In this picture, one female egg in a cell was selected to be a queen and the rest of the larvae on the frame are workers, from other female eggs. What is the difference between growing up a queen or a worker?

The worker bees nursing the female larvae decide what diet to feed each larvae from the time the egg hatches. The diet that produces a worker differs in components such as proteins, hormones, sugars and other nutrients in types and amounts from the diet fed to a larvae chosen by the workers to become a queen. The future queen receives only "royal jelly" from her hatching as an egg to the end of her royal life. Logically, the hive needs many workers but only one queen, so almost all female larvae get the worker diet.

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