a randy oliver snip followed > by my comments..


Yes, handily.  I have a friend here in California, who by feeding pollen
sub, creates monstrous brood-filled colonies over the winter solstice, from
which he can shake bulk bees in January to sell to other beekeepers.  Thus,
the nail in the coffin of the winter solstice brood shutdown hypothesis.

It is a misconception that colony buildup has anything to do with
photoperiod or time of year.

>Again Randy I do think you need to be a bit more careful with your use of words.  ie 'has anything to do' MAY have been better stated as 'has little to do'.  These may seem like little difference in the above rhetoric but anyone has done research with the the intention of publication the use of such phrases would be a large flag when it comes to the peer review process.

at least when it comes to the bees I keep here (central Texas) both time of year, nectar and pollen flow plus a large component of genetics plays into this question.  with the latter variable being very important in terms of the number of bees and brood in a particular hive during the late part of the year.  much of the stuff I have here at least looks like Italians and these (or at least some of these) you could expect to see large population and large brood areas which I could easily feed heavily and add a bit of pollen substitute and drive to large population by late January.  For most folks in most of the country the weakness in the plan should be self evident but at least as far as literature is concerned was covered by none other that Charlie Marzz (sp?) years and years ago.  With the darker breeds in my apiary you can push these population just a bit but not nearly as effectively as your can 'some' of the italians.

Of course anyone could move the 'some' used above thru selection but in much of the country this is ineffective and would lead to almost immediate failure.

Gene in central Texas
  

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html