Worker bees, not queens, decide which larvae become leaders

Beneath the long-held image of the bee colony as monarchy lies a quieter truth: it is the workers, not a sovereign queen, who shape the future of their kind. Researchers at Penn State have found that worker bees determine which larvae become queens by controlling the juvenile hormone content of the food they prepare — a discovery that reframes insect society as something more collaborative than hierarchical. In the narrow window of days seven and eight of larval development, a feeding decision made by ordinary workers can redirect an entire biological destiny. The colony, it turns out, governs