http://westmtnapiary.com/winter_cluster.html
"A “winter” bee is produced at the end of the summer. It is physiologically different than the summer bee, with a different hemolymph (blood) protein profile than the summer bee. Winter bees also have fatter bodies which they rely for nourishment during the non-foraging months. A winter bee will live much longer (4 to 6 months) than a summer bee (45 days)."
that text says actually nothing but they are different. Of coursethey are.
The writer is an ordinary beekeeper. Not a researcher.
But we know too that if bees cannot bee in winter rest in cluster, they will not survive to next summer. Mosty glass hives in warm house will perish.
In my latitude winter bee live 8-9 months.
One thing is strange. When my boy was little, i often took an extra queen and 10 workers into the cage and brought them home to capital city. They lived allways in cage only 2-3 days. In summer associate bees live 10 days.
About royal jellyevery worker larva is feeded with royal jelly during its 3 first days.
When the worker emerge, during 3-5 first days a bee eate lots of pollen to finish it growth. An emerged bee does not have fat body and it will be developed with this pollen eating. The message is that pollen must be in the hive all the time. Workers will be miserable winterer if they do not get enough pollen. patty is not good enough in that purpose.
Bees will eate teir larvae if the pollen store is finish.
As much as I understand no one feed wintered bees when they emerge. Every bee takes care themselves. Of course they change food and so deliver the the messagethat the queen exist.
Once I tried to reviele out the diffence of bee size with weighing. An empty bee's weight is about 100 mg and full of honey it is 170 mg.
how I get empty bees? I took an just emerging bee but it was 140 mg. Yes, it was feeded allready when it made a tiny hole though the cell cap.
It is better find researcher's text where origin is university. They have time to wonder things. Google seems to be full of vivid imagination writings like "secret of long living". Pollen sellers write what ever.