What triggers production of winter bees?

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domino

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I've googled this and read various accounts of why & when bees start to make winter bees.

I'd be interested on the BKF folks views on this topic.
 
I had been keeping bees many years before I came onto this forum. Up until then I had never heard of .... Winter bees....
E
 
I always thought that winter bees were made as a response to brood reduction in the autumn.
Nurse bees having fewer bees to use their vitellogen stores up on feeding deposited it in their bodies.
It’s probably nowhere near as simple as that or maybe it is
 
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IT is well explained on internet how winterbees become.

- time table on bees genome that they react at local climate correctly
- shortening days
- lack of pollen
- winterbees will be those which do not feed larvae.

- when winterbees emerge, they need to eate lots of good pollen

- bees genetic ability to stand long Winter.
 
.
IT is well explained on internet how winterbees become.

- time table on bees genome that they react at local climate correctly
- shortening days
- lack of pollen
- winterbees will be those which do not feed larvae.

- when winterbees emerge, they need to eate lots of good pollen

- bees genetic ability to stand long Winter.

So Finnie.. my expert little snow fairie.... when do you get Spring bees???

Yeghes da
 
When the Queen commences to lay in Spring !



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Yes indeed .
But will your answer satisfy our little corny pisky ?


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Agent provocateur hah Ha Ha Ha !


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First winter bees spotted today. That means queen excluder can be removed and another year is done, bar the oxalic in December. Clever bees. The pong of ivy honey tells its own story
 
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I absolutely trust the Snow fairies answer.


Chons da

Snow fairies do not belong to Finnish mytology. We have a snow man stories , you know that with carrot nose and with charcoal eyes.

Snow fairy has been in English mytology since Ice Ace. So, it is a native creature.

We have never thought that snow man can be right or wrong.
 

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