The relatively poor performance of colonies supplemented
with pollen before wintering requires explanation.

This treatment was implemented to test
the hypothesis that fall pollen feeding would be nutritionally
beneÞcial to the wintering population and
might generate more productive colonies the next
spring. In a separate study that examined the effect of
fall pollen supply on the timing and development of
the population of winter bees, we found that colonies
that were supplemented with pollen in the fall tended
to rear a greater number of workers over an extended
length of time before brood rearing ceased for the
winter compared with colonies with lower pollen supplies
(Mattila 2005). However, proportionally fewer of
these fall-reared bees wintered, presumably because
nutritional reserves in workers were allocated to the
fall nursing effort rather than to overwintering physiology.

fall feeding continued for approx 2 wk longer than it
had during the previous fall, which may have exacerbated
the brood rearing “burn-out” of fall-reared
workers that needed to overwinter, making them relatively
less productive the next spring.

Influence of Pollen Diet in Spring on Development of Honey Bee Colonies
H. R. MATTILA AND G. W. OTIS
J. Econ. Entomol. 99(3): 604-613 (2006)
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