What regulates egg production in Winter

[fiat500bee]

Don't try and work it out in human terms we don't think the same just work with it.

I'm actually using plants as my pseudo-scientific comparison .
We've already established that bees are attuned to daylength.
But it's not just down to mystery and magic; there has to be an internal mechanism.
I'll "just work with it"; the bees give me no option but to do so, but it intrigues me that this might be a process which has still not been researched.
The bees don't just "know" that they need to be ahead of the game. They can't learn to plan ahead. Even when a few of them do put their heads out of the hive entrance and calculate the celestial movement, any ensuing action or instruction would need a chemical trigger.
I'll leave it there....maybe too complex and academic and unnecessary to think about; especially when the bees do the right thing whether or not we understand why.

 

[Nige.Coll]

I'm actually using plants as my pseudo-scientific comparison .
We've already established that bees are attuned to daylength.
But it's not just down to mystery and magic; there has to be an internal mechanism.
I'll "just work with it"; the bees give me no option but to do so, but it intrigues me that this might be a process which has still not been researched.
The bees don't just "know" that they need to be ahead of the game. They can't learn to plan ahead. Even when a few of them do put their heads out of the hive entrance and calculate the celestial movement, any ensuing action or instruction would need a chemical trigger.
I'll leave it there....maybe too complex and academic and unnecessary to think about; especially when the bees do the right thing whether or not we understand why.

Pollen is the chemical trigger and daytime temperatures they can safely fly in.
yew makes pollen from Feb onward. Plenty of trees start making pollen early, this is no coincidence it;s evolution.

 

[Nige.Coll]

what is royal jelly made of ?
When is the queen stimulated to lay by food that is produced by pollen ?

Pollen is the key, without it you have no eggs and worker bees don't
develop so no brood.

 

[beeno]

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.

Yes, but the plants need to bloom for them to be of any use to bees in terms of producing pollen and is it not the temperature that allows for this? Thereof the talk of a late spring? Some years all the bloom is lost to frost. Weather and particularly temperature seems to be the overriding factor IMHO. If the sun is out the bees come out for cleansing flights and a little forage reckie if it is warm enough.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Think Fiat's point went straight over someone's head

 

[North End Bees]

David Evans includes a section on winter bee production in his post on varroa management. He notes that egg production begins/ceases according to a combination of photoperiod, temperature and forage availability.

 

[North End Bees]

There was a really interesting webinar hosted by FIBKA yesterday evening with Randy Oliver talking about build up/attrition of bees over the season. I've just noticed that they've put it up on Youtube today.
The part about winter bees is about an hour in but the whole video about seasonal build-up/decline is really interesting.

 

[user 6228]

honeybees have been tested for photoperiodism and there is only a very weak response. bees have to be at least 3 weeks ahead of the pollen and nectar. Unlike plants honeybees spend the midwinter in the total dark isolated from temperature change( thermal mass of trees). So they must gather the info from only sporadic observations and then

 

[Erichalfbee]

There was a really interesting webinar hosted by FIBKA yesterday evening with Randy Oliver talking about build up/attrition of bees over the season. I've just noticed that they've put it up on Youtube today.
The part about winter bees is about an hour in but the whole video about seasonal build-up/decline is really interesting.

Excellent bit about reading the combs properly.

 

[The Poot]

Excellent bit about reading the combs properly.