The Bees will always maintain enough work bees to tend the brood regardless of how many foragers it has.
Reducing the number of foragers will speed up the use of stores because the nurse bees, house bees, and brood still need to be fed.
House bees are the bees in flux population wise, but enough need to be maintained for processing nectar into honey, housekeeping chores, and air conditioning (those bees that fan the air into the hive from one side of the entrance, up to the top and down the other side, where other bees fan it out of the hive.