Hi all,
Stan said in part:
"Another has happened
regularly with the packages of NZ and OZ bees shipped to the northern
hemisphere.  At first glance that seems to conflict with what Jerry
mentioned about shifts in photoperiod having to be under 15 minutes per day
for them to have effect (i.e. great photoperiod change but queens get into
high gear quickly). However, in thinking about this a bit more I have
realized that it is not a very fair experiment, as those queens are probably
young and fresh out of nucs and have not had a brood rearing slowdown to
come out of."
The shift in daylength after these packages arrived and were hived
would probably be less than 15 min. per day as they arrive in North
America fairly soon after the spring equinox.  This could actually
agree with what Jerry has observed.
 
"Another method is to put the animals in an artificial environment with
controlled environment and see how their behaviour changes. "
This is done to some extent with indoor  wintering setups.  There are
two basic types of systems that I have heard about.  One is a
completely controled environment where temperature is controled with
either heating or cooling as needed and there is much ventilation.
In at least many of these buildings no light is allowed into the
building and the reports I have heard indicate no broodrearing but
this may be due to the very low relative humidity due to the
ventilation.  In the other setup, there are outside entrances that
allow some light in and there is less ventilation.  In these setups
the colonies do rear brood starting usually sometime in January or
February here in MN.  When they began broodrearing, they increase
consumption of stores partly in an effort to provide the humidity
needed to rear the brood.  One beekeeper here in Minnesota has found
with this kind of wintering setup that by increasing the humidity in
the building the extra feed consumption is much reduced.   The
colonies coming out of his building in the spring have brood and look
similar to outdoor wintered colonies.  The key is some broodrearing
during late winter.
One would have to design an experiment to control light with enough
humidity for broodrearing to take place to answer the question.  It
should be fairly easy to conduct such a test during the winter months
here in the north.  Has anyone done this?  The canadians have done
much more research on indoor wintering systems than we have here in
the US.
blane
 
 
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Blane White
State Apiary Inspector
Minnesota Department of Agriculture
90 W Plato Blvd
St Paul, MN 55107
http://www.mda.state.mn.us
phone 612-296-0591
fax 612-296-7386
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