News release

From: Springer Nature

Biology: Newly identified ‘queen cell builders’ shape honeybee royalty (N&V) *IMAGES*

A previously unrecognised group of young worker honeybees who are responsible for raising their queen in physicochemically unique peanut-shaped wax cells are described this week in Nature. The paper finds that queen cells are not simply structural containers but engineered microenvironments that have a critical role in queen development.

So-called royal jelly — the glandular substance secreted by worker honeybees and fed to young larvae — has long been thought to be the key factor in the development of queen bees. Despite differing greatly in shape compared with neighbouring hexagonal cells, queen cells (where these larvae develop) are regarded simply as a passive shelter, and their influence on queen development remains unclear.

Kai Wang, Boris Baer, Xiaofeng Xue, and colleagues conducted a series of experiments on the composition of queen cell wax. Using scanning electron microscopy, the authors found that queen cell wax has distinct physical and chemical properties: it is less dense, more pliable and has a higher melting point than worker cell wax. The authors tested the influence of this environment by rearing queen larvae in 172 cells capped with either queen wax or worker wax for 7 days. They found that queens developing in worker wax cells had higher mortality rates and were smaller in size, suggesting that the queen cells’ particular biochemical environment were crucial for developing larvae. The authors also identify a unique type of worker bee, dubbed ‘queen cell builders’, with specialized physiological adaptations.

Compared with worker cell builders, queen cell builders are typically younger and have higher thoracic temperatures and distinct metabolic activity. Behavioural tracking showed that they actively modify, enrich and dilute queen cell wax during construction, rather than simply recycling existing material.

These findings challenge current understanding of honeybee differentiation and nest architecture, redefining queen cells as specially engineered microenvironments and key determiners of bee type. The authors find this to be consistent in Asian and European honeybees.