Transcriptomic, Morphological, and Developmental Comparison of Adult Honey Bee Queens (Apis mellifera) Reared From Eggs or Worker Larvae of Differing Ages

Abstract

Queens and workers are very distinct phenotypes that develop from the same genome. Larvae from worker cells up to 3.5 d old can be transferred to larger queen cells and will subsequently be reared as queens and develop into functional queens. This has become a very popular queen rearing practice in contemporary apiculture. Here we used RNA-Seq to study the consequences of rearing queens from transplanted worker larvae on the transcriptome of the adult queens. We found that queens reared from transferred older larvae developed slower, weighted less, and had fewer ovarioles than queens reared from transferred eggs, indicating queens were cryptically intercaste. RNA-Seq analysis revealed differentially expressed genes between queens reared from transferred larvae compared with queens reared from transferred eggs: the older the larvae transferred, the greater the number of differentially expressed genes. Many of the differentially expressed genes had functions related to reproduction, longevity, immunity, or metabolism, suggesting that the health and long-term viability of queens was compromised. Our finds verify the previous studies that adult queens reared from older transferred larvae were of lower quality than queens reared from transferred eggs or younger larvae.

The relationship between the internal and external morphological parameters of honeybee queens (Hymenoptera: Apidae) and the determination of morphological variation

“…Ovary mass is expressed as one of the important parameters affecting the body mass of the queens (Presern & Smodis Skerl, 2019). However, Yi et al (2020) reported that the queens reared from eggs have a higher weight at the emergence, queen cell length, number of ovarioles, and shorter development time than older worker larvae. In the current study, there was no significant difference between the ovary weight of the Anatolian and Sanliurfa queens, and the highest value was obtained in June.…”

“…It has been reported that the queens with a high reproductive capacity and longevity have greater body weight, more mating success, and more sperm storage and ovary capacity. There is also variation in the weight of the queens in different life periods (Kahya et al, 2008;Tarpy et al, 2011;Yi et al, 2020). De Souza et al (2019) stated that the queen's reproductive potential can be improved via dietary supplementation, and the queen's reproductive potential affects the productivity and health of honeybee colonies.…”

Increased Mass-Rearing of Queens in High Royal-Jelly-Producing Honey Bee Colonies (Apis mellifera ligustica) Generates Smaller Queens with Comparable Fecundity

“…Alternatively, the observed difference in royal jelly quantity due to queen cell number [24] constitutes another possible reason since in vitro diet quantity influences queen development [39]. Moreover, more residual royal jelly in the queen cells after queen emergence is recognized as a characteristic of high-quality emerged queens [10,40]. Hence, the observed qualitative and/or quantitative differences in royal jelly are possibly, at least in part, responsible for the changes in the size-related features of our raised queens.…”

Meta-Analysis of the Public RNA-Seq Data of the Western Honeybee Apis mellifera to Construct Reference Transcriptome Data

“…We previously found >80 transcriptomic expression datasets for A. mellifera in the integrated transcriptome database known as All of Gene Expression (AOE) [ 5 ]. We also discovered several studies using A. mellifera RNA-Seq published over the past two years [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Future studies should use detailed transcriptomic data including isoform sequence data for single genes, non-coding RNA sequences, and annotations of each isoform.…”