> I'm still looking for someone to lay out a full explanation...
> I suspect you will die looking. I hesitate too make comments on this matter considering our different conditions.
The effect of different conditions is most illuminating. Studies done where there are severe winters tend to correlate brood production with temperature and day length. However, when bees are kept in the tropics where the day length is constant and the temperature does not have a large range, a different picture emerges. This is from BEEKEEPING IN THE GUIANAS, BY GARD W. OTIS AND ORLEY R. TAYLOR, JR.:
> Effects Seasonal Cycle. Brood production, honey storage, and swarming are strongly influenced by climate and abundance of resources. Brood production is generally strong during the two dry seasons as a result good foraging conditions and/or abundant resources (appendix). During the wetter months, however, insufficient brood is reared to maintain colony strength, and colony populations can become dangerously small. Beekeepers often have to feed their bees during these periods, mostly in June and July, although in some years from February to May also. Nectar surpluses are accumulated during the dry seasons, and the major honey crop is harvested in October or November. Occasionally a second, smaller crop is extracted in April.
ΒΆ
This is from BROOD REARING IN HONEYBEE COLONIES FROM LATE AUTUMN TO EARLY SPRING, BY A. AVITABILE:
> The data presented here show that substantial brood rearing began after the winter solstice. It may well be that the increase in day length is one of the factors that initiates the transition from a resting phase to a phase of increasing brood rearing and rapid colony build-up. Conversely, the decrease in day length after the summer solstice may initiate a gradual reduction in colony brood production. If so, the winter and summer solstices could set the biological clock for the reproductive schedules of honeybees as changes in day length affect the reproductive cycle in many other insects(Beck, 1970). If the initiation and the reduction of brood rearing are set going at the solstice, the effect may be direct or indirect. Pain et al. (1972) found a peak in the production of queen pheromone (9-oxydec-2-enoic acid) in June and a second, lower peak in December. Whatever the mechanism, initiation of brood rearing in response to increase in day length would enable a colony to increase its population in time to exploit early nectar flows. Conversely, gradual reduction in brood rearing in summer and autumn enables a colony to reduce its population and honey consumption long before the honey flows end.
PLB
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