Depends what you mean by ‘catch up’.
Yes, they would progress sufficiently to survive the next winter (otherwise, they would soon become extinct in that particular locality).
Swarming would be curtailed to an extent if the weather was not conducive for collecting a good surplus in the colony.
Remember, in nature, the bees would only have natural predators, but humans expect these hardworking little slaves to produce an excess for them to steal each year.
Those that have already promoted early brooding will, no doubt, already have burgeoning colonies. But how much they may need to feed their bees, until they are able to support themselves and collect a surplus, is yet to be seen.
About 5/6 years ago, many bee colonies were still being fed by their keepers into May, after an early spring start which deteriorated into a very cold period of about 6 weeks.
Enrico has summed it up nicely, but seasons have been much less ‘regular’ for the last couple of decades than previously. Put down, initially, to global warming, now more universally accepted as climate change. Most probably brought about by human activity.
But there are still climate change deniers around, just as there are neonic pesticide defenders and people who still puff on their fags every day (agreed, some just cannot throw off the addiction, but those starting to smoke cigarettes are the real non-thinkers of the next generation).
