#bumble bees

"Every bumble bee colony has a queen, but a new study led by researchers at Penn State suggests the process of determining which baby bee reigns supreme may be less monarchal than the royal title suggests. The study, published in the journal Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, explored why some bumble bee larvae become workers and others become queens, despite coming from the same eggs.

The team found that juvenile hormone—a hormone in insects responsible for insect development, molting and reproduction—was key to this process. When researchers administered the hormone to worker bees, they passed it to all the larvae through feeding. The more hormone the larvae received, the more likely they were to become queens.

It's the first study to show that bumble bee caste is determined by the workers, shifting the understanding of the colony from a top-down hierarchy to a decentralized system where the caregivers can alter the future of baby bees, the researchers said.

Etya Amsalem, associate professor of entomology in the College of Agricultural Sciences and corresponding author on the study, said that understanding larval fate is key to understanding social behavior in the insects, which rely on reproductive division of labor: some females reproduce while others help.

"Since all these females share the same DNA, it's a striking example of how the same genotype can produce very different forms," she said. "It's also a practical question since bumble bees are important for pollination, so knowing how to produce queens could improve commercial breeding and management."

Queen bees and worker bees don't just have different social roles, they are also physically very different, the researchers said. Bumblebee queens are large, long-lived and reproductive, while workers are smaller and do not reproduce.

Seyed Ali Modarres Hasani, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State and lead author on the paper, said that previously, scientists knew hormones were involved in the process that determined whether larvae become workers or queens, but the exact mechanisms were unknown.

"A single female egg in bumblebees holds the blueprint for two completely different life paths: the giant, reproductive queen or the small, sterile worker," he said. "We wanted to understand what triggers the change in the female life trajectory, when does it happen and who controls the process.""

Myeye bees #mybees

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"What is Bumble Bee Watch ?

Bumble Bee Watch is a collaborative effort to track and conserve North America’s bumble bees. This community science project allows for individuals to:

Upload photos of bumble bees to start a virtual bumble bee collection;

Identify the bumble bees in your photos and have your identifications verified by experts;

Help researchers determine the status and conservation needs of bumble bees;

Help locate rare or endangered populations of bumble bees;

Learn about bumble bees, their ecology, and ongoing conservation efforts; and

Connect with other community scientists."

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