Royal Jelly — Designer Diet in Bee Colonies

The larvae of honeybees obtain their nourishment from a glandular secretion of adult bees, the function of which is comparable with the mother’s milk of mammals.Honeybees are insects that undergo a complete change during their development. The well-defined steps are the egg, several larval stages, the pupa, and finally the adult bee. In this respect, bees follow one of the standard paths of insect metamorphosis. Insect larvae obtain nourishment from either plant or animal tissues that they collect themselves, or which are provided by the adults. Honeybees nourish their larva with a secretion produced by nurse bees in special glands in their heads, a sort of surrogate mother’s milk. This made-to-order nutrition provides opportunities to manipulate the nature of the resulting adults; the production of a new queen is one of the more striking uses of this option.