BEIJING — Researchers reported on June 3 in Nature that the wax of the peanut-shaped chamber where a queen bee develops has distinct physical and chemical properties that help steer its development. The study challenges the long-held notion that royal jelly alone—the queen-making food fed to select larvae—makes a queen bee.

Analyses showed that queen-cell wax is softer, less dense, and chemically distinct from worker-cell wax. In experiments, queen-destined larvae were fed royal jelly for four days, then capped with either queen-cell or worker-cell wax. Up to about two-thirds of larvae capped with worker-cell wax died, compared with roughly a third under queen-cell wax. Those reared under queen-cell wax developed into pupae that more closely resembled undisturbed natural queens.

Scientists have identified a group of worker honeybees specially adapted to build the queen’s waxy abode. These “royal nurses” spend more time constructing queen cells than workers do for regular cells, run hotter than other bees, and show distinct patterns of gene activity. The honeybees responsible for crafting the queen’s home run a fever to help melt and blend special chemicals into the wax.

Boris Baer, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside, said, “Bees spend so much time and energy constructing these cells that it made little evolutionary sense if they were merely larger food containers.” He added, “Everything was supporting the same conclusion. Bees do more than feed the queen — they ‘actively engineer them.’”

Kai Wang, an apiologist at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, said the distinct chemical scents found inside the cells are especially intriguing. Wang asked, “Are they influencing the developing queen’s senses, preparing her for mating and life after emergence?” He also asked, “Are some [chemical scents] produced by the larva herself? And could the future queen be actively communicating with the workers constructing her chamber?” In an email, Wang wrote, “For centuries, we believed ‘you are what you eat’ was the only rule for making a queen bee. Our study rewrites that rule to say ‘you are where you live, too.’”

Thomas Seeley, a biologist at Cornell University, said, “The discovery is very cool and thought-provoking.” He added, “To me, queen cells have long seemed important because odors from a developing queen may permeate the wax walls, marking them as very special spots that workers recognize and don’t accidentally damage.” Researchers plan to trace when during development the wax environment exerts its effects.