Hi all
Continuing on the question whether colonies have innate rhythms or merely respond to externalities:

> The data presented here confirm that A. dorsata performs regular annual migrations in Sri Lanka. Colonies leave the Up Country in October and November, and in December swarms arrive in Anuradhapura, 150-200 km away.   The annual cycle of migration seems to be genetically fixed. We had three colonies of A. dorsata in flight rooms in Oberursel, German Federal Republic (one for 26 months), and all these colonies stopped brood rearing every 3 or 4 months. They remained without brood, leaving the comb several times a day, and forming clusters on the edges of the cage in the flight room. Before the daily dark period (L : D was 13 h : 11 h) the bees returned to the comb. This phase lasted for 1-2 months, and afterwards the colonies started brood rearing again. A tendency to suspend brood rearing periodically for a month or two at a time may thus be superimposed on a tendency to migrate in search of better forage, in such a way that the swarms do not make nests in the regions between those in which the two main seasonally complementary sources of forage occur.  

Journal of Apicultural Research 19(1) : 21-34 (1980)

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