On 23/07/2013 4:40 AM, allen wrote:
>
> Oftentimes, when we observed hives split in two -- one half with the
> original queen laying steadily and the other being queenless 20 days --
> we saw that by the end of the season the half with the new later queen
> would catch up and surpass the half that had a queen the whole time.
> People might attribute that to the new queen, but we must remember
> that each nurse bee can only feed so many larva in a lifetime and that
> can be a limiting factor. It seems that that capacity can be banked
> during queenlessness and employed when the new queen gets going.
I have wondered if the effect is perhaps because the first of the new
larvae are very well fed and pass this along for a period.
Geoff Manning
***********************************************
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