a  Bill T snip.. 
>
>I had my first encounter with hives experiencing the effects of a dearth.

>1. What really prompts the queen to stop laying? It must come from the
>workers, but how?
>2. What prompts the renewal of laying?
>3. Is there a delay after the first drenching rain until the renewal of
>laying?
>4. In my case, but it may be universal, why didn't sugar syrup promote the
>continuance of laying but it appeared she stopped?

We can experience multiple dearth events in one year and not so uncommonly in one season.  In the worst of the drought years it can seem like one long drought with lots of feeding to keep bees alive. At the extreme pollen becomes totally depleted in the hive.

imho
1. fresh nectar and pollen coming into the hive. at the onset of a dearth you may have some pollen coming in but no nectar.

2. If there is pollen stores in the hives then thin syrup (not thick and what might appear to some to be way to thin... 1 to 4 is about right).

3. Here it takes a least a day of good sunshine to get the plants to cranking out more nectar.  cloudy weather seems to delay time to renew nectar flow and consequently brood rearing.

4. Could be thickness of syrup or lack of pollen stores????

5. The timing of egg laying being halted does seem to have some genetic characteristics... ie the carnis or darker breed seem to halt brood rearing quicker than say your typical Italian and the cordovans may never halt brood rearing. I raised some cordovans some years back for the hobby folks and these were good 'learner wheel' bees but did brood all the time and had little or no resistance to varroa.

6. As a casual observation the no treatment queens I have/raise here that halt brood production when conditions go south and tend to brood at normal rates (say 1500 eggs maximum per day) seem to stand the best chances against varroa.

Gene in Central Texas...   

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