I installed package bees from Austalia, shaken from late summer colonies,
into hives in Calif that were them immediately buried in snow for 11 days.
The bees immediately adjusted and initiated broodrearing.

Winter broodrearing is largely dependent upon the amount of stored
beebread.  One of Lloyd Harris' hives in his study came out of winter
storage with more bees than it went into storage with (the strongest hive
in his study).  In most studies that I've seen, the low point of
broodrearing is in late Nov, and generally picks up in early Dec, well
before the solstice.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html