https://phys.org/news/2018-10-deconstructing-superfood-honeybee-hierarchy.html

Royal jelly is widely believed to have health benefits, although the medical evidence is scarce (and doctors caution that some people have severe allergic reactions). One thing the substance certainly does is promote caste development in honeybees, causing genetically identical larvae to develop into very different adults. All bee larvae eat royal jelly secreted by worker bees for the first few days of life, but those picked out to be queens continue to eat it until they pupate and beyond, whereas those that will become workers switch to honey and pollen. Biologists believe molecular signals in royal jelly drive larval bees to develop into queens, but the details of that signaling—including what molecule is most important and how it is recognized—are not yet clear.

Questions along that line brought Katharina Paschinger, a chemist, to revisit royal jelly this year in research published in the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics. Paschinger and colleagues in Iain Wilson's lab at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna focus on glycoproteins, proteins to which a chain of sugar molecules is attached. These sugar chains, called glycans, can dramatically affect proteins' binding and signaling activities.