Roles of DNA Methylation in Color Alternation of Eastern Honey Bees () Induced by the Royal Jelly of Western Honey Bees ().

Honey bees have a very interesting phenomenon where the larval diets of two different honey bee species are exchanged, resulting in altered phenotypes, namely, a honey bee nutritional crossbreed. This is a classical epigenetic process, but its underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This study aims to investigate the contribution of DNA methylation to the phenotypic alternation of a nutritional crossbreed.

Feeding Asian honeybee queens with European honeybee royal jelly alters body color and expression of related coding and non-coding RNAs.

The Asian honeybee () and the European honeybee () are reproductively isolated. Previous studies reported that exchanging the larval food between the two species, known as nutritional crossbreeding, resulted in obvious changes in morphology, physiology and behavior. This study explored the molecular mechanisms underlying the honeybee nutritional crossbreeding.

Female developmental environment delays development of male honeybee (Apis mellifera).

Background: Nutrition and cell size play an important role in the determination of caste differentiation in queen and worker of honeybees (Apis mellifera), whereas the haploid genome dominates the differentiation of drones. However, the effects of female developmental environment on the development of males remain unclear. In this study, young drone larvae were transferred into worker cells (WCs) or remained in drone cells (DCs) to rear drones.