A spokesman for Nuevo Leon's government said the plane had left Monterrey in the early hours of Sunday and aviation authorities lost contact with it about 10 minutes later.
Honey bees live in complex societies comprising tens of thousands of individuals," explained study co-author Paul Hurd from Queen Mary, University of London.
Most of these are female 'worker' honeybees that are unable to reproduce and instead devote their short lives to finding food in flowers... and other tasks such as nursing larvae inside the hive."
The type of food the larvae is fed dictates the developmental outcome - larvae destined to become workers are fed a pollen and nectar diet, and those destined to become queens are fed royal jelly.
The type of food the larvae is fed dictates the developmental outcome - larvae destined to become workers are fed a pollen and nectar diet, and those destined to become queens are fed royal jelly.
The change is suggested to be the result of a "histone code" - a process that sees genetic changes made to proteins called histones within cells' nuclei. Rather than "genetic" changes that are locked into DNA, these are known as "epigenetic" changes.
The development of different bees from the same DNA in the larvae is one of the clearest examples of epigenetics in action - mechanisms that go beyond the basic DNA sequence," said co-author Mark Dickman from the University of Sheffield.
"From our knowledge of how the histone code works with in other organisms, we think the marks on the histone proteins might act as one of the switches that control how the larvae develop."
