Hello,
I would like to respond to two quotes from different posts:

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How do the nurse bees know it is time to start feeding the queen more so she will lay eggs again?
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I am of the understanding that nurse bees will feed the queen anytime there is 'solicitation' by her for food. So powerful is this response towards solicitation, that bees are known to feed hive beetles soliciting for food.  I welcome any clear evidence showing nurse bees "refusing to respond to a queens solicitation for food".  

Perhaps we should consider that because egg laying requires allot of energy, and a dormant queen very little energy. When the queen is not in egg laying mode, perhaps she is 'simply not in need of much food', and the resumption of egg producing / laying therefore the trigger causing increased feeding, rather than feeding the trigger to egg laying.        

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They used thermocouples to observe winter temperatures and came to the conslusion that the Queens were pushed into laying up a small nest to create water.
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It depends on how you wish to define 'pushed'.  I will agree with Grants most excellent comment, that egg laying by the queen in the early brood rearing initiation phase is largely controlled by the temperature gradient.  Studies in early 20c have shown this. 

Best Wishes,
-Joe Waggle
"…Contracto frigore pigrae." -Virgo
-With cold benumbed, inactive they remain.
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/






      

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