蜜蜂是一种高度社会化的昆虫，一个完整健康的蜂群通常是由蜂王、工蜂和雄蜂组成。尽管蜂王和工蜂的遗传物质相同，但它们在形态特征、行为职能和寿命方面表现出显著的差异。许多研究结果表明，营养因素是造成蜜蜂级型分化现象的主要原因，它可以影响蜂王幼虫和工蜂幼虫体内大量基因和蛋白的差异表达。随着表观遗传学的发展，人们对基因表达的调控机制有了新的认识，它与DNA甲基化、非编码RNA调控和组蛋白乙酰化等密切相关。这也为蜜蜂级型分化的分子机制提供了新的理论。本文就表观遗传学和蜜蜂级型分化的研究进展做一综述。

      The honey bee is a highly eusocial insect. Generally, a healthy colony is made up of a queen, workers and drones. Despite being genetically identical, the queen and workers show striking differences in morphology, behavior, and lifespan. Many studies have suggested that the main factor leading to caste differentiation is nutrition, which can cause differential expression of a large number of genes and proteins between queen and worker larvae. With the development of epigenetics, there have been new insights into the regulatory mechanisms of gene expression, that is, DNA methylation, and the correlation between noncoding RNAs regulation and histone acetylation with the regulation of gene expression. These new insights also provide a new theoretical basis for caste differentiation in the honey bee. This article reviews the progress of epigenetics and caste differentiation in honey bees.