The hypopharyngeal glands (HGs) of honey bee nurse workers secrete the major 
protein fraction of jelly, a protein and lipid rich substance fed to developing 
larvae, other worker bees, and queens. A hallmark of poorly nourished nurses is 
their small HGs, which actively degrade due to hormone-induced autophagy. To 
better connect nutritional stress with HG degradation, we looked to honey bees 
and other insect systems, where nutrient stress is often accompanied by fat body 
degradation. The fat body contains stored lipids that are likely a substrate for 
ecdysteroid synthesis, so we tested whether starvation caused increased fat body 
lipolysis. Ecdysteroid signaling and response pathways and IIS/TOR are tied to 
nutrient-dependent autophagy in honey bees and other insects, and so we also 
tested whether and where genes in these pathways were differentially regulated 
in the head and fat body. Last, we injected nurse-aged bees with the honey bee 
ecdysteroid makisterone A to determine whether this hormone influenced HG size 
and autophagy. We find that starved nurse aged bees exhibited increased fat body 
lipolysis and increased expression of ecdysteroid production and response genes 
in the head. Genes in the IIS/TOR pathway were not impacted by starvation in 
either the head or fat body. Additionally, bees injected with makisterone A had 
smaller HGs and increased expression of autophagy genes. These data support the 
hypothesis that nutritional stress induces fat body lipolysis, which may 
liberate the sterols important for ecdysteroid production, and that increased 
ecdysteroid levels induce autophagic HG degradation.