Honeybee Sibling Rivalry has Deadly Consequences
Sibling rivalry can be a real pain to deal with, especially if you’re the parent. Be glad that your kids aren’t honeybees, though—a recent study, published in The Journal of Experimental Biology, shows that they can release a pheromone specifically for killing older sisters. The pheromone in question causes vital stores of the protein vitellogenin to move from fat tissue to the blood. The blood then moves the vitellogenin to head glands and there it’s converted into a jelly. Older sisters feed this jelly to the honeybee larvae, thus sacrificing their own energy stores to feed the next generation. Biologist…
