The Influence Of The Water-solubility Matter Of Tea Pollen On The Caste Differentiation Of Italy Honeybee (Apis Mellifera Ligustica)

Honeybee is typical social insect, it has three castes:queen bee,worker bee and male bee. The queen bee and worker bee are both from fertilized eggs, so they have the same genome , but their caste characters ,social status and function are very different. There are so many factors induce these differences, such as nutrition,hormone,gene regulation and social condition.This research studies the function of the water-solubility matter of tea pollen , one of important components in the nutrition ,in the caste differentiation process of Apis mellifera ligustica .we studied this function with two means: comparison of caste characters and molecule biology technique.We took the same larvae ( 1～3 h after hatch from fertilized egg ) of Apis mellifera ligustica into the same cultivate condition ( 35.8℃temperature and 85 % humidity ),and then aparted them into two groups: group W and group Q. Made sure the only difference between these two groups was that the food of group W larvae had some water-solubility matter of tea pollen, but the food of group Q larvae didn't.The result of this research shew that the bees of group W and group Q had both high livability (higher than 65%),and the weights of larvae at different developmental stages and new adults of group W and group Q were similar with nature worker bee and queen bee , respectively. So, we can say that this research is success.we can get so many differences between the larvae of group W and group Q from the view of caste characters ,such as: the weights of larvae at different developmental stages and new adults, growth curve of weight ,caste characters and the developmental stage of ovary ,and so on. About all these characters above , We found out that the larvae of group W was very similar with nature worker bee ,but the larvae of group Q was very similar with nature queen bee. And we made sure this result clearer with the outcome of the molecule level :we got 6 ESTs during the crucial time(72～108 h behind larvae birth)of caste differentiation of Apis mellifera ligustica by the mRNA differential display technique . 4 ESTs appeared in the larvae of group W only , the another 2 ESTs appeared in the larvae of group Q only . And the functions of these genes are all about growth and caste differentiation of the larvae.Above all , we can get the conclusion that the water-solubility matter of tea pollen can induce the female larvae developing into worker bee; and this matter can induce the expression of same genes , and at the same time restrain the expression of some other genes.