Brood pattern in December in the "tropics"

[KeyLargoBees]

I have seen some vague references in my reading saying that brood rearing is less a matter of temperature and weather than it is circadian rhythm and amount of daylight thing.....can anyone confirm or deny?

All of my hives have gone from solid brood patterns to very spotty in the past 3 weeks but I don't see any evidence of any other issues and mite counts (sugar shake) have been very low.....

Temps are still in the 70-84 degree range and other than the past 3 wet days we have had spectacular weather. Bees are flying well and continuing to lay in stores and pollen and honey stores are very healthy and I am even contemplating stealing a few frames for some Christmas honey.

This first year has been so fraught with other challenges I am a little gun shy at this point and if there is something I should be doing would love some guidance....just so little info on beekeeping here in the tropics and doing this "mentorless"  I am sort of flying blind ;-)

Thanks for any and all responses

[GSF]

Key, I don't know if this applies in your neck of the woods. I've always heard they went with the equinox. The build up actually starts on or around the 1st day of winter, slowly I might add. Then before the flow they get really crazy with the brood.

[Michael Bush]

>I have seen some vague references in my reading saying that brood rearing is less a matter of temperature and weather than it is circadian rhythm and amount of daylight thing.....can anyone confirm or deny?

As with many things in life and especially in bees, it's not all one or the other, it's both.  My observation hive will start a small patch of brood around January the 1st even when it's -27 F outside.  Brood rearing is a combination of the change in the length of days, the availability of pollen, the ability of the colony to keep the brood warm, the resources the colony has stored etc.  It's not just one of these factors but all of them.

[KeyLargoBees]

Thanks Guys...will monitor the situation. Trying to keep good notes so I can document the cycles down here and educate myself ;-)

[BeeMaster2]

Key,
Another factor that you will have is the pollen/nectar flow. If it is strong at this time of year, they may continue to produce brood.
Jim

[KeyLargoBees]

Jim,
That's sort of what I was expecting....still a lot of stores coming in and they are backfilling parts of what was previously the brood chamber and still drawing slowly on undrawn areas on the outer frames. So it seems we still have some sort of flow. All 3 queens are still laying but the brood area has contracted to a much smaller area in all three hives and the pattern is spotty. If I had to guess I would say they are in "maintenance mode" and balancing daily losses with hatches....but that may be a bit of anthropomorphism on my part. Still seeing eggs, all stages of larvae, as well as capped brood but its not the solid pattern I am used to seeing. If one hive started doing this I would expect the queen was failing based on a "spotty" laying pattern but to have all 3 hives start it simultaneously makes me think its environmental.

In any event time will tell and hopefully as GSF Mentioned the equinox on Dec 21 and days getting longer after that will trigger them to start buildup for spring. We haven't had ANY cold weather yet and the lowest nighttime temp so far has been 68 (brrrr  )so I cant attribute this to weather but this getting dark at 5:20 crap certainly has ME depressed ;-)

[BeeMaster2]

Key,
Last year my observation hive had wet larvae showing on the outside frames by Dec 27. That means she probably started on the inside frames by Dec 22. It quickly grew from that point on by the end of January the brood area was just about full size.
Jim