Well I'm sitting here on New Years Eve and rereading all the postings on
"biological clock?" and I've got to say you are the most interesting group
of people I ever "spent" New Years eve with!
 
For a biological clock to exist the bees have to make a decision (brood
rearing is the one we are considering) that is independent of an
environmental stimulus.  Some of the postings have hinted at that, but
others haven't.  For example we had a couple of postings from Virginia that
either nectar or pollen coming in stimulated brood rearing. And Adrian
posted from California that acceleration of incoming stores stimulated brood
rearing.  Even here (Prince Edward Island, 45N) brood rearing will increase
when stores are coming in or if the bees are given stimulative feeding, but
the broodless period has ended months earlier in the coldest part of the
year with nothing coming in and maybe when the photoperiod has started to
increase, but maybe BEFORE the photoperiod has started to increase,
according to a study Allen mentioned (which actually killed two hives each
week to look which is something few of the bee-loving people on this list
would be prepared to do).
 
I would consider it evidence supporting the possibility of a biological
clock if the bees were anticipating a flow before it had started (or
anticipating spring).  Bob in Hawaii wrote:
 
>When I was keeping Caucasian bees in California the queens prety much quit
>laying in October. Here in Hawaii they do not quit at all. They slow down
around
>September or October and stqrt their buildup in November or December so
they are
>reqdy for the Lehua flow that begins in January. The pollen comes in every day
>and so does a little honey.
 
These bees seem to be anticipating the Lehua flow long before stores are
coming in.
And Nick's fable would also indicate that the bees were building up to
utilize flows before they were getting environmental input that a flow was
coming.
 
I wish that Mauricio in Queensland had said that the bees started building
in the dry season BEFORE the wet comes, but he said at the first rain they
started building.  Although this is anticipating the flow before it comes,
the environmental clue (rain) is obvious.  Jerry seemed to discount humidity
as being a major factor in brood rearing (in favour of photoperiod) but
Allen Dick (private communication) said that when humidity rose in indoor
wintering brood rearing increased.  This is a rather interesting similarity
between Alberta and Queensland.
 
I know of two methods that are often used when experiments are done on the
biological clocks of other organisms.  One method is sometimes to transport
the animals to a place where the biological clock would be out of sync.
Nick's fable would be that kind of experiment.  Another has happened
regularly with the packages of NZ and OZ bees shipped to the northern
hemisphere.  At first glance that seems to conflict with what Jerry
mentioned about shifts in photoperiod having to be under 15 minutes per day
for them to have effect (i.e. great photoperiod change but queens get into
high gear quickly). However, in thinking about this a bit more I have
realized that it is not a very fair experiment, as those queens are probably
young and fresh out of nucs and have not had a brood rearing slowdown to
come out of.
 
Another method is to put the animals in an artificial environment with
controlled environment and see how their behaviour changes.  Maybe Jerry's
flight control rooms are something like that, I'm not sure.  I think that in
many of the environmentally controlled indoor wintering setups that the bees
still have an outside entrance and can get light clues.  I would love to
know whether the bees which wintered under sods as someone described
recently had built up in anticipation of spring.  I'm not sure, but I think
it probable that bees overwintered here in cellars in the past would have
started brood rearing in the dark.  If not I would not think they would be
much good here where spring arrives so suddenly.
 
I wish a happy and healthy New Year to all of you and to your bees.
Stan