Continuing on the effect of the reduction of pollen intake into the colony

Fewell & Winston compared the amount of brood reared by colonies, which were initially similar in terms of number of adults, extent of the honey stores, open and capped brood and empty combs but were manipulated to contain either large or small pollen reserves. Brood production increased significantly when colonies were given more extensive pollen stores. Interestingly, the differences in pollen reserves due to the manipulation did not persist. After 16 days, the extent of the pollen stores had returned to the pre-experimental level in both treatments. 

If honey bee colonies were kept from pollen foraging by placing them under a wire mesh tent they reduced and finally stopped brood rearing. As a consequence, the number of workers became significantly lower in these colonies than in colonies, which were allowed to forage freely. These results clearly indicate that honey bees respond to the availability of pollen by adjusting brood production. 

In the case of pollen shortage, this may happen either through a decrease of the number of eggs laid by the queen, a reduction of the pollen quantity used per larvae or the destruction of parts of the brood. Anecdotal evidence from one colony showed that fewer larvae survived until the capping stage during periods of artificial pollen shortage probably because they were cannibalised by adult workers. Similar observations were made by Imdorf et al.

Pollen nutrition and colony development in honey bees – Part II
Irene Keller, Peter Fluri and Anton Imdorf
Swiss Federal Research Station for Animal Production and Dairy Products (ALP), 
Bee Research Centre, Liebefeld, CH-3003 Bern
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c56a/1afc7bbcc875427589f0d4249862d51cb071.pdf

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