Fig. 3.

Experiment 2 access to royal jelly versus nurse bees. a Mean (+S.E.) ovary activation by treatment; b mean (+S.E.) ovary activation by treatment and ovary size; c mean HPG development by treatment. N = bees exposed to candy, pollen, QMP, and 100 nurses; RJ = bees exposed to pollen, QMP and 10 % royal jelly incorporated into the queen candy; OA = an ovary activation treatment group without QMP as a baseline comparison. N = 180 bees, 60 per treatment, 30 per replicate, 10 bees per cage. Different letters indicate significant differences using LSD student t tests