eli5: How exactly does the Royal Jelly turn an ordinary bee larvae into a Queen?
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Any female bee larva COULD become a queen if fed with sufficient royal jelly. They all have the genetic potential but it’s “tuned off”
Special proteins in the jelly, plus the extra supply of food, signal the developing bee to turn into a queen. A protein called Royalactin seems to be the most important one but there’s a bunch of other protiens and stuff too
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Just recently learned this. The royal jelly isn’t actually what makes a queen, but rather the lack of pollen.
Normally, as a source of protein, bees eat pollen. The pollen causes female larvae to not develop with functional ovaries. The queens aren’t fed that pollen, so their ovaries develop as normal. The royal jelly is a protein substitute, because they do still need protein to grow.
Royal jelly doesn’t turn ordinary bee larvae into queens. Larvae that aren’t fed royal jelly become workers because their ovaries shrivel.
Royal jelly has no detectable phenolic acids. In a test, bees reared with p-coumaric acid in their feed had significantly smaller ovaries than those reared *without* p-coumaric acid in their feed.
[Source.](https://www.wired.com/2015/09/royal-jelly-isnt-makes-queen-bee-queen-bee/)
Thanks to the MRJPs. Those proteins are created by the bees to feed larvas. If enough are given, they become queens.
“Major royal jelly proteins (MRJPs) are a family of proteins secreted by honey bees. The family consists of nine proteins, of which MRJP1 (also called royalactin), MRJP2, MRJP3, MRJP4, and MRJP5 are present in the royal jelly secreted by worker bees. MRJP1 is the most abundant, and largest in size. The five proteins constitute 83–90% of the total proteins in royal jelly. They are synthesised by a family of nine genes (mrjp genes), which are in turn members of the yellow family of genes such as in the fruitfly (Drosophila) and bacteria. They are attributed to be involved in differential development of queen larva and worker larvae, thus establishing division of labour in the bee colony.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_jelly
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Royal Jelly: the magical potion that turns bee larvae into queens! It’s like bee puberty on steroids. 🐝✨
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