What regulates egg production in Winter

[fiat500bee]

Following a thread where the reduction or stopping of egg-laying in Autumn is discussed, it sounds like mid-winter increase in brood numbers is prompted by increasing day length. I had assumed that available forage would always regulate the amount of brood. But of course, the bees are building up in anticipation of the better days to come. Hence the warnings to keep an eye on stores in late winter.

In the natural state, where bees can't lean on a beekeeper to top them up, is there a strategy which helps a colony to avoid starvation?

 

[Michael ECB's]

In the natural state, where bees can't lean on a beekeeper to top them up, is there a strategy which helps a colony to avoid starvation?

In my neck of the woods it's Robbing... The relentless attack on another colony....
Just thinking about it,,,, Bees can actually be a bunch of relentless "Bastards - ?" if they want too.....

Only the strongest survive...

 

[Erichalfbee]

In my neck of the woods it's Robbing... The relentless attack on another colony....
Just thinking about it,,,, Bees can actually be a bunch of relentless "Bastards - ?" if they want too.....

Only the strongest survive...

Yes I agree. If you think wasps robbing a hive awful you should see bees do it.

 

[Murox]

Following a thread where the reduction or stopping of egg-laying in Autumn is discussed, it sounds like mid-winter increase in brood numbers is prompted by increasing day length. I had assumed that available forage would always regulate the amount of brood. But of course, the bees are building up in anticipation of the better days to come. Hence the warnings to keep an eye on stores in late winter.

In the natural state, where bees can't lean on a beekeeper to top them up, is there a strategy which helps a colony to avoid starvation?

You might like to read this. post 14.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

You might like to read this. post 14.

You beat me to it! The article which elainemary pointed us to yesterday does not answer your question (is there a strategy which helps a colony to avoid starvation?) but gives a context for it and how to approach the search for an answer.

Yes I agree. If you think wasps robbing a hive awful you should see bees do it.

I remember struggling with that BBKA exam question on listing winged pests of honey bees. No. 1 is: other honey bees.

 

[user 6228]

... it sounds like mid-winter increase in brood numbers is prompted by increasing day length...

Sounds plausible but heres the problem ... How do the bees detect changing day length in midwinter? When they start to switch on brooding (near the solstice) there is no detectable day to day change in day length even if the days are sunny. (its astronomy). But in our climate day length if more a function of weather and is especially so in midwinter. So how do bees know when spring is 3 brood cycles away? They dont wait until the day length changes are obvious if beekeepers are to be believed.

 

[fiat500bee]

... How do the bees detect changing day length in midwinter?

Coming from a horticultural training and career background, whilst I can't answer this I find it easy to accept.

With plants you can see subtle changes within a few weeks of the winter solstice. Despite the weather usually getting generally more wintry about and after that time.

It's not just in midwinter that bees sense day-length; everything indicates that some mechanism "tells" them to start winding down brood-rearing after the summer solstice. With the intrinsic sophistication that bees show, that innate ability has got to be programmed in somehow. I have no idea what the chemical responses would be, but I have faith that they exist and that someone here will enlighten us.

-

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

How do the bees detect changing day length in midwinter?

Maybe they don't, but as we know that they are very aware of the sun's position (and changes of) throughout the day, which allows them to navigate from a waggle dance from earlier, and also regularly programme themselves to sense gravity and it's 'position' (look up Prof Robert Pickard and observations on the first bees in space) it doesn'take much of a leap to think they are aware of seasonal changes to the sun's declination.

 

[victor meldrew]

Maybe they don't, but as we know that they are very aware of the sun's position (and changes of) throughout the day,bwhich allows them to navigate from a waggle dance from earlier, and also regularly programme themselves to sense gravity and it's 'position' (look up Prof Robert Pickard and observations on the first bees in space) it doesn'take much of a leap to think they are aware of seasonal changes to the sun's declination.

Ley lines ! Ask RP .

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Ley lines ! Ask RP .

 

[Newbeeneil]

I think Roger would call them "energy lines" nowadays

 

[user 6228]

...it doesn'take much of a leap to think they are aware of seasonal changes to the sun's declination.

My thoughts exactly if they have an "internal sextant" to measure the suns Azimuth then it follows that measurement of the Sun's Altitude is no great stretch. There no mention of it in the journals, perhaps entomolgical researchers dont do celestial navigation.
I always have colonies that become very active about noon (local time ) and it always makes me think about "shooting noon sights" when afloat.

 

[beeno]

Following a thread where the reduction or stopping of egg-laying in Autumn is discussed, it sounds like mid-winter increase in brood numbers is prompted by increasing day length. I had assumed that available forage would always regulate the amount of brood. But of course, the bees are building up in anticipation of the better days to come. Hence the warnings to keep an eye on stores in late winter.

In the natural state, where bees can't lean on a beekeeper to top them up, is there a strategy which helps a colony to avoid starvation?

I think it is more to do with temperature rather than day length per se. The bees can rear a small amount of brood from their fat bodies in late winter early spring, but after that they need pollen to continue and they apparently prefer fresh pollen. Mine regularly start brood rearing last few days in February when there is plenty of fresh pollen available. As it may well be the case that the emerging winter bees have polished off all the stored pollen anyhow as I found out. One year I had a whole 14x12 brood box stuffed with pollen, when I check the brood box in December for OA treatment it was empty!

 

[fiat500bee]

Good old Wikipedia; in some plants, sensing day-length is the function of a compound called phytochrome, which in daylight, is converted to a version that promotes growth.
In darkness the active version of phytochrome is converted back to the inactive form. So when day length exceeds night-length there will be a surplus of the active compound and vice-versa.
I'm pretty sure bees can manage a simple system like that and for me, it has much more plausibility than ley-lines or bees using sextants.
It has to be a chemically activated response since everything else in the bee-world seems to use that method.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It has to be a chemically activated response since everything else in the bee-world seems to use that method.

So explain how they calculate or 'sense' the changes in the sun's position in the sky related to time differences between the waggle dance and then finding the indicated forage?

 

[Nige.Coll]

Same as always food in = eggs out.

 

[fiat500bee]

So explain how they calculate or 'sense' the changes in the sun's position in the sky related to time differences between the waggle dance and then finding the indicated forage?

I haven't even explained the day length conundrum,; remember, I'm offering an answer to my own question from a parallel in the plant world. I'm sure there will have been scientific studies of these matters as they relate to bees.

 

[user 6228]

Good old Wikipedia; in some plants, sensing day-length is the function of a compound called phytochrome, which in daylight, is converted to a version that promotes growth.
In darkness the active version of phytochrome is converted back to the inactive form. So when day length exceeds night-length there will be a surplus of the active compound and vice-versa.
I'm pretty sure bees can manage a simple system like that and for me, it has much more plausibility than ley-lines or bees using sextants.
It has to be a chemically activated response since everything else in the bee-world seems to use that method.

plants dont start doing things at the solstice..no reliable or significant measurable change in daylength for months either side of the solstice in the UK. On the other Bees measure the angle between landscape features and the sun remember it and then repeat it in the waggle dance... sounds like something producing the same results as a sextant. Honeybees can learn the relationship between the solar ephemeris and a newly-experienced landscape . Bees spend most of the time in the nest particularly in winter.
Derek - who does know celestial nav.

 

[fiat500bee]

plants dont start doing things at the solstice..no reliable or significant measurable change in daylength for months either side of the solstice in the UK.

I don't dispute that bees have amazing navigational skills and their abilities extend as you have said. But I think the facts are at odds with what you say about daylength. As a mere human being (just about making the grade ) even I can sense the increasing day length within a week of the solstice and I'm sure most people could say the same.

It is a fact that plants do start doing things that are in some cases quite visible, very soon after the winter solstice. Like bees, even apparently dormant plants are busy with internal mechanisms even in the depths of winter.

 

[Nige.Coll]

Bees can tell time. They can allow for the movement of the sun during dances.
Bees are very attuned to the length of the daylight hours.
Remember they have to be 3 weeks ahead to generate a foraging force.
Don't try and work it out in human terms we don't think the same just work with it.