>
>
> >The article and the studies (#4,6) below state that winter bee production
> starts when natural pollen supplies dwindle and supplemental feeding of
> pollen makes no difference and should be started later.


It appears to me to be not quite so simple. In Mattila and Otis' area, a
LOT of pollen comes in late in the season (they quantified the amount of
beebread in their test hives in another paper).  So it may be the
stimulation of FRESH pollen coming in that is the stimulus, rather than the
amount of fermented beebread reserves.

And the findings in Jeffree's study cited by Pete have long surprised me.
Jeffree is one of few researchers who have opened hives during winter to
quantify the amount of broodrearing going on.

The amount of protein stored in the fat bodies of the winter bees is not
enough to sustain broodrearing (I've done the math).  Yet Jeffree found
brood in many Scottish hives during winter.  However, it also doesn't get
that cold in Aberdeen.  I've checked the Web for flowers that bloom in
Aberdeen during winter, but didn't learn a lot.  Perhaps a lurker could
inform us -- please!

But as a beekeeper in the California mountains, who DOES check his hives
for brood during the winter, I can assure you that our bees cease
broodrearing when there is no pollen, and rapidly engage in broodrearing
when pollen is coming in (as it is right now at my home).

Our colonies deal with a prolonged pollen dearth from July until January.
Feeding pollen sub in autumn makes all the difference in the world for me
to be able to supply strong colonies for almond pollination.  We start on
Sept 1, and feed around 8 lbs per hive in total (checking every 10 days),
ending in late October, as the weather turns too cold to fly (typ in
November).  Those two months of feeding allow weak colonies in August to
grow and go into autumn with lots of sealed brood, which emerges to become
large clusters of winter bees.
-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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