I think that this relates to a number of earlier discussions, specifically, 

* the observed need to sometimes stimulate bees with a little feeding or loosening so they notice and exploit a new resource nearby, 

* the need to spread brood or reverse sometimes, and

* the ill effects of disturbing brood chambers in fall and winter, 

* Why a queen excluder on a second standard brood chamber can be a honey excluder when used by some unobservant beekeepers, but can also be a very useful tool for producing more honey with reduced labour for an expert.

* the observation that hives that fill up on the first round of open feeding in the fall show little interest in subsequent rounds even though other, lighter hives will be very active and the knowledge that bees with lots of empty comb near the brood area are more inclined to forage than hives which have good stores.

It seems that when a strong colony of many popular strains of bees gets going on a strong flow, that they go crazy, plugging every available cell, buiding comb everywhere, and even continue that comb building and storage under the floor board in some cases if they run out of room inside and conditions are right.

However, after that flow tapers off, beees are commonly observed to become much less active and interested in foraging even if some good forage becomes available again.  

In summer, they may swarm.  In fall, they move feed from feeders and cooler regions into the brood nest, settle down and become very inactive for a while.  

The exact dynamics depend on the ambient conditions, populations, amount and stages of brood, hive geometry, and the amount, nature and distribution of the stores in-hive as well as other factors like health, predation, disturbance, etc.

Good beekeepers understand this intuitively and have ways to stimulate the bees in season and keep them working on flows by manipulations, stimulation, or by providing storage space, or are wise and leave them alone in fall and winter so as not to trigger activity which would be pointless and shorten the lives of the winter bees.

After a few weeks of reduced activity, in each case, much of the brood has hatched, leaving open cells and the bees have eaten their way through the nearby stores, so they start to rev up a bit and resume activities.

I suspect that this cycle in various forms is observed throughout the year and successfulm beekeepers are those who can recognise it and know whether to encourage it by feeding in fall or manage around it by splitting, loosening the brood nest and other tricks, depending on time of year and the goals.

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