Description

Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae, as well as adult queens. It is secreted from the glands of the worker bees, and fed to all the larvae in the colony, regardless of gender or caste.

When worker bees decide to make a new queen, because the old one is either weakening or dead, they choose several small larvae and feed them with large amounts of royal jelly in specially constructed queen cells. This type of feeding triggers the development of queen morphology, giving them the ability to lay eggs.