The gap between the claims and the performance was noted as far back as 1930:

A few biological differences have been noted as the results of observations in commercial apiaries. One of these has to do with rearing brood in season and out of season. It is often stated that some one race restricts its brood rearing quicker in time of dearth or famine than any other race. Studies in the bee culture laboratory of the Bureau of Entomology at Somerset, Md., on the Carniolan, Italian, and Cyprian races, indicate that there all three give the same relative response to seasonal honey flows and pollen yields.

YEARBOOK OF AGRICULTURE, 1930 
United States Department of Agriculture

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