STARVATION STUDIES OF LARVAL HONEY BEES

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Abstract
When larvae of the three castes of honey bees are starved under natural or laboratory conditions, some produce dwarf adults. To test the effects of larval starvation on subsequent development, larvae of various weights were removed from their food and put into gelatin capsules; (a) success in completing prepupal and pupal ecdyses, (b) weight after the pupal ecdysis, (c) time for development, and (d) type of adult reared were recorded. The longer the larval feeding period for the three castes, the more successful were tie ecdyses. Developmental failure was high if worker, drone, and queen larvae were removed from their food when they were 60–65%, 85%, and 60–65% of the weights of control larvae respectively. The developmental times of workers or drones did not vary significantly with the various larval weights but those of larvae from queen cells increased with decrease in larval weight. The various-sized adult drones reared did not appear to differ in gross external appearance but the smaller workers had proportionately longer wings than the larger ones. Adults reared from the smallest larvae from queen cells resembled workers (or intercastes) whereas those from the largest larvae resembled queens.

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