Hepburn, H. R., Pirk, C. W. W. & Duangphakdee, O. Honeybee Nests: Composition, Structure, Function (Springer, 2014).
Maleszka, R. Beyond Royalactin and a master inducer explanation of phenotypic plasticity in honey bees. Commun. Biol. 1, 8 (2018).
Buttstedt, A., Ihling, C. H., Pietzsch, M. & Moritz, R. F. A. Royalactin is not a royal making of a queen. Nature 537, E10–E12 (2016).
Kamakura, M. Royalactin induces queen differentiation in honeybees. Nature 473, 478–483 (2011).
Sasaki, T. & Pratt, S. C. The psychology of superorganisms: collective decision making by insect societies. Ann. Rev. Entomol. 63, 259–275 (2018).
Slater, G. P., Yocum, G. D. & Bowsher, J. H. Diet quantity influences caste determination in honeybees (Apis mellifera). Proc. R. Soc. B 287, 20200614 (2020).
Kucharski, R., Maleszka, J., Foret, S. & Maleszka, R. Nutritional control of reproductive status in honeybees via DNA methylation. Science 319, 1827–1830 (2008).
Buttstedt, A. et al. How honeybees defy gravity with royal jelly to raise queens. Curr. Biol. 28, 1095–1100 (2018).
Buchwald, R., Breed, M. D. & Greenberg, A. R. The thermal properties of beeswaxes: unexpected findings. J. Exp. Biol. 211, 121–127 (2008).
Bujok, B. et al. Hot spots in the bee hive. Naturwissenschaften 89, 299–301 (2002).
Stabentheiner, A., Kovac, H., Mandl, M. & Kafer, H. Coping with the cold and fighting the heat: thermal homeostasis of a superorganism, the honeybee colony. J. Comp. Physiol. A 207, 337–351 (2021).
Kubásek, J., Svobodová, K., Půta, F. & Krejčí, A. B. Honeybees control the gas permeability of brood and honey cappings. iScience 25, 105445 (2022).
Franklin, R., Niverty, S., Harpur, B. A. & Chawla, N. Unraveling the mechanisms of the Apis mellifera honeycomb construction by 4D X-ray microscopy. Adv. Mater. 34, 2202361 (2022).
Traynor, K. S., Le Conte, Y. & Page, R. E. Queen and young larval pheromones impact nursing and reproductive physiology of honey bee (Apis mellifera) workers. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 68, 2059–2073 (2014).
Buchwald, R., Breed, M. D., Bjostad, L., Hibbard, B. E. & Greenberg, A. R. The role of fatty acids in the mechanical properties of beeswax. Apidologie 40, 585–594 (2009).
Morgan, J., Townley, S., Kemble, G. & Smith, R. Measurement of physical and mechanical properties of beeswax. Mater. Sci. Technol. 18, 463–467 (2002).
Ma, C., Ahmat, B. & Li, J. Effect of queen cell numbers on royal jelly production and quality. Curr. Res. Food Sci. 5, 1818–1825 (2022).
Namdar, D., Neumann, R., Sladezki, Y., Haddad, N. & Weiner, S. Alkane composition variations between darker and lighter colored comb beeswax. Apidologie 38, 453–461 (2007).
Pratt, S. C. Collective control of the timing and type of comb construction by honey bees (Apis mellifera). Apidologie 35, 193–205 (2004).
Brykczynski, H. et al. Crystallization of wax esters in oleogels—relevance of chain length and ester bond position. Food Struct. 44, 100429 (2025).
Ray, S., Savoie, B. M., Dudareva, N. & Morgan, J. A. Diffusion of volatile organics and water in the epicuticular waxes of petunia petal epidermal cells. Plant J. 110, 658–672 (2022).
Ramírez, G. et al. Odor experiences during preimaginal stages cause behavioral and neural plasticity in adult honeybees. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 10, 105 (2016).
Lv, H. et al. Mechanism of regulation of stem cell differentiation by matrix stiffness. Stem Cell Res. Ther. 6, 103 (2015).
Xu, R. et al. Proteome-metabolome profiling of wax gland complex reveals functional changes in honeybee, Apis mellifera L. iScience 27, 109279 (2024).
Seeley, T. D. Social foraging by honeybees: how colonies allocate foragers among patches of flowers. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 19, 343–354 (1986).
Pirk, C. W. W., Crous, K. L., Duangphakdee, O., Radloff, S. E. & Hepburn, R. Economics of comb wax salvage by the red dwarf honeybee, Apis florea. J. Comp. Physiol. B 181, 353–359 (2011).
Bucio, A., Moreno-Tovar, R., Bucio, L., Espinosa-Dávila, J. & Anguebes-Franceschi, F. Characterization of beeswax, candelilla wax and paraffin wax for coating cheeses. Coatings 11, 261 (2021).
Dunne, J. et al. Honey-collecting in prehistoric West Africa from 3500 years ago. Nat. Commun. 12, 2227 (2021).
Figueiredo, I. L. et al. Fast derivatization of fatty acids in different meat samples for gas chromatography analysis. J. Chromatogr. A 1456, 235–241 (2016).
Shao, C.-Y. et al. Aromatic profiles and enantiomeric distributions of chiral odorants in baked green teas with different picking tenderness. Food Chem. 388, 132969 (2022).
Ma, W. et al. Aroma characterisation of Liu-pao tea based on volatile fingerprint and aroma wheel using SBSE-GC–MS. Food Chem. 414, 135739 (2023).
Hepburn, R., Duangphakdee, O., Phiancharoen, M. & Radloff, S. Comb wax salvage by the red dwarf honeybee, Apis florea F. J. Insect Behav. 23, 159–164 (2010).
Wang, K., Jin, X. Code and scripts for: Queen cell architecture shapes honey bee queen development. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19425141 (2026).

