Jose writes:  " In areas with long broodless periods, in the fall, with no pollen coming in and large amounts of stored pollen, brood production stops.  In the early spring, with a similar situation regarding incoming and stored pollen, brood production resumes.”

My reply:  Excellent point Jose.  I haven’t accurately tracked it, but it appears to me that modulation of brood rearing actually precedes forage availability or lack thereof by a few weeks.  

I observe this in terms of aggressive expansion of the brood nest in the weeks leading up to our main spring flow despite forage availability as you point out, and then a contraction of the brood nest during the peak of that flow which is some weeks before we transition into our summer dearth.

(I’m seeing this in colonies that have responded favorably to manipulations and not swarmed).

Perhaps I’ll have time to quantify that observation some day because I may be allowing myself see something that isn’t really there, but it does appear that the bees are modulating their brood rearing based on what the ‘expected’ field conditions are going to be about one to two brood cycles in advance.
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