I find the idea of raising brood to generate water very interesting but temps in the 90's aren't need for water condensation. The bees do need water to dilute honey to feed the brood and the air in the cluster can't be too dry for the brood to do well.
It has occured to me that bees like to raise brood all the time [if they can]. They decrease or stop brood rearing when incoming nectar and pollen decrease or stop as is the case with the onset of cold weather. Bees are also non-stop acutely aware of their colony size and the age of the adult bees in the colony. To fall below some threshold colony size risks colony collapse. There is a minimum (or optimum) size they need to maintain for survival (first) and for successful reproduction (second). I like to think that bees:
1. Decrease/cease brood rearing in the fall when food in the field becomes scarce
2. As adult bees in the wintering colony pass, the colony senses the need to raise more brood to restore the colony strength. [I've often wondered if the queen, as she travels the decreasing winter cluster, becomes 'nervous' and solicits more feeding to lay eggs...]
3. A couple of relatively nice days in the middle of the winter will induce a clutch of fresh eggs that may get eaten when the weather becomes cold again. I've seen this many times.
4. I don't know to what extent bees as influenced by increasing degree days but I know they monitor field conditions to start building up for reproduction (swarming). If we get nice weather during the skunk cabbage bloom in the middle of the winter around here, the bees will bring in fresh pollen and very litte nectar, and the brood clutch will expand quite a bit. I think bees feel one favorable bloom will possibly soon be followed by another and another.
Waldemar
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