How your diet shapes your destiny – The Beehive Masterclass

You have probably heard this saying before – “you are what you eat”. It sounds interesting and can be the basis of arguments back and forth, but it’s proven to be true with insects and is certainly more true than we imagine.

The idea that your diet can shape your destiny is beyond food and nutrition. It is also mental and psychological. Whatever we consume – knowledge, music or food gets into us in ways that can influence our behavior.

There is no better way to illustrate this than to look at the bee colony and see how each develops into its future.

In a beehive, the development of different types of bees is a fascinating process driven by their unique biological roles and social structure.

The Queen Bee

The queen bee is crucial to the hive’s survival as she is responsible for laying eggs and maintaining the colony’s population. When a new queen bee is needed, the existing queen lays a special type of egg called a “queen cell.” The workers then feed this egg with royal jelly, a nutrient-rich substance secreted from their mandibular glands. The royal jelly stimulates specific genes in the developing larva, triggering its transformation into a queen bee. The queen is the only sexually developed female in the colony and will go on mating flights to gather sperm from multiple drones to fertilize her eggs.

The Worker Bees

Worker bees are sterile females responsible for various tasks within the hive, such as foraging for food, caring for the brood, cleaning the hive, and defending it. Most of the eggs laid by the queen become worker bees. The workers’ development is influenced by their diet during the larval stage. Workers are fed a mixture of pollen and nectar, which leads to the development of their specialized glands, mandibles, and other necessary features for their specific roles.

The Drone Bees

Drone bees are the male bees in the colony, and their sole purpose is to mate with the queen during her mating flights. Unlike worker bees, drones are not assigned specific tasks within the hive. Instead, they are raised from unfertilized eggs laid by the queen, meaning they only have one set of chromosomes from their mother. Drones do not have a stinger and cannot collect pollen or nectar.

A beehive can have tens of thousands of bees. In this number, only one will be a Queen Bee, tens of thousands will be workers and about 1 -2,000 will be drones. They all develop from the larva stage based on what they are fed. The future of the colony is dependent on these interesting dynamics.

So, back to you? What are you feeding on? Are you developing to be a queen, a worker, or a drone? What are you feeding on? Are you feeding on the diet of leaders, or from the store of commoners? Your diet determines your destiny.