I can point you to hundreds of colonies in your area in full shade,  with no problems.  Mike Gardner,  Jerome Jones, and many others keep all their hives in full shade,  including queen mating nucs.  In fact the Majority of hives in Fla and GA are in shade as the sun is a killer.  Hives spend more time gathering water than honey.

You have to understand that correlation is not causation.  Hives in shade in beetle areas will not necessarily fail,  and hives in full sun will not solve the problem.  The full sun issues serves  to help dry out the soil around the hive.  In some areas that would help,  others its no help at all,  I mentioned that in the text.  

As for Combat,  as you mentioned,  it wasn't combat they used.  Beetles do not injest combat, and are in fact less than interested in it.  If you can make them contact it,  they will die.  But if you put them in a container with a dab of it,  they starve before they touch it.

Fiprinol based traps in hives in the US are illegal,  and suggesting them would not be a good plan on my part.   I tend to try not to advise others to break the law and common sense,  If you wish to that’s your choice. Especially when its effect is less than stellar.

If you take a severely infested hive and put any kind of good trap in it,  it will help.  Regular use of a fiprinol based poison in a CD case will not prevent issues.   Like it or not we have no silver bullets yet. 

Don't try to twist to start an argument,  wasn't my point.  Point was simply to pass on information I have spent the last 3 years working on.  How your perceive it and what you do with it is your choice.

Charles

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