ArticleScientific reports2025
Vitellogenin plays a role in regulating honey bee swarming.
Article in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Regulation of reproductive and behavioral plasticity in social insects.Current opinion in insect science · 2026Review
- Simulation of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing for the Vitellogenin gene in Apis mellifera.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Variation in behavioural maturation in tropical honey bees corresponds with hormonal and molecular differences.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Swarming, or colony reproduction, in honey bees (Apis mellifera) is an indicator of colony-level fitness. The drivers of swarming remain elusive at both the colony and individual bee level. Floral abundance, rapid colony growth, and congestion are colony correlates and partial triggers of swarming but are not singularly causal. The nutritional and physiological state of individual bees within colonies preparing to swarm has been understudied. We hypothesized that vitellogenin (Vg), a phospholipoglycoprotein that influences the honey bee age-based division of labor in individual bees, might also mediate the cascade of physiological and behavioral processes that lead to reproductive swarming. Over two years, we compared vitellogenin(Vg) gene expression levels in age-marked worker bees sampled at various intervals before a swarm (pre-swarming colonies) to samples of same-aged bees collected from non-swarming colonies at the same time intervals. Vg levels were significantly higher in 10- and 14-day old bees from pre-swarming colonies three days prior and within 24 h of swarm issuance. Vg levels normally decrease in 10-14d old bees that are transitioning to the forager behavioral state. We provide a hypothesis for how Vg levels in individual bees might influence the colony-level regulatory processes that lead to swarming. This work may show for the first time, the link between a highly conserved protein associated with individual reproduction across oviparous animal taxa and its function as a mechanism of social reproduction in honeybees colonies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.