"Switching off the pathways prevented larvae on a royal jelly diet from producing juvenile hormone and developing as queens, but could the insects develop into queens if they received a juvenile hormone supplement? Sure enough, when Dolezal and Mutti gently applied juvenile hormone to the skins of royal jelly fed larvae that had lost insulin and/or TOR signalling, they developed into queens. So, the IRS and TOR signalling molecules are key links between the larvae's diet and their developmental fate." IRS and TOR nutrient-signaling pathways act via juvenile hormone to influence honey bee caste fate,
Journal of Experimental Biology
, Volume 214, p.3977-3984, (2011)
[1]

Honey bee queen during egg laying. See also worker egg laying.

"there is a high degree of modularity in the regulation of genes and behavior, with distinct behavioral states represented by distinct gene network configurations" Behavior-specific changes in transcriptional modules lead to distinct and predictable neurogenomic states,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, (2011)
[2]

Usually there is one egg in a cell but sometimes (in the image top left cell and bottom right cell) in one cell of honey bee comb there are two eggs laid by queen. This happens when the queen starts egg laying or when the queen has problems with egg laying. For example relatively small queen of A. m. jemenitica can lay two eggs in relatively large cells of A. m. carnica Abnormal behaviors mediated by nest cell size: a case study with Yemeni honey bees,
Egypt. Acad. J. Biolog. Sci.
, Volume 6, p.23-27, (2013)
[3].

Honey bee comb with brood of different ages scattered irregularly. This brood pattern is often called "shot brood" (other names: "pepperpot brood", "pepperbox brood"). It usually indicates high mortality of brood. The mortality can be related to brood diseases or presence of diploid drones. Shot brood can also occur when the queen has problems with egg laying.

"The study, which was conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, showed that genes involved in creating different sexes, life stages and castes of fire ants and honeybees evolved more rapidly than genes not involved in these developmental processes. The researchers also found that these fast-evolving genes exhibited elevated rates of evolution even before they were recruited to produce diverse forms of an organism." Relaxed selection is a precursor to the evolution of phenotypic plasticity,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, Volume 108, Number 38, p.15936-15941, (2011)
[4]

"In pre-queen larvae, proteins involved in carbohydrate and energy metabolism, for instance, are much more active than in workers." Mitochondrial proteins differential expression during honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) queen and worker larvae caste determination,
Journal of Proteome Research
, Volume 10, Number 9, p.4263-4280, (2011)
[5]

Honey bee queen is a female able to mate with drones and lay fertilized eggs. In a colony there is usually one queen. It is not able to rear brood when not attended by workers. Development time of queen is about 16 days. It develops in queen cells. Early in life the queen mates during mating flights with multiple drones and stores the semen in spermatheca. After mating the main task of the queen is egg laying. During 24 hours the queen is able to lay more than 2000 eggs. At the time of egg laying the queens is attended by workers which feed and groom her.

"Scientists in the BEEgroup at the University of Würzburg research the biology of the honeybee and study ways to keep bee populations healthy; now they're keeping track of their honeybees by attaching a different 2D data-matrix code to each bee."

Honey bee comb with uncapped honey.