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

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