I have just opened and checked my two yards of bees in Northern Alberta 
about 150 miles north of Allen Dick. The hives all seemed strong enough for 
wintering in fall of 2010. The results were as follows:

Yard 1)  22 out of 25 survived and are quite strong.

Yard 2) 10 out of 24 survived and are weak to moderately strong.

The good yard had mostly new queens in spring of 2010 and the poor yard had 
mostly queens from spring 2009.

In spring of 2010 both yards received a spring treatment with oxalic acid 
dribbled between frames . Both received a treatment with vaporized oxalic 
acid on October 1 and another on November 1. The treatment was repeated due 
to high levels of natural mite drop near the end of October.

Both yards were given 2 gallons of 2:1 sugar syrup with fumadil in 
September.

I did a natural mite drop this spring with the good yard averaging 3 mites 
per day and the poor yard averaging 6 mites per day. I treated the poor yard 
again with vaporized oxalic acid last week, observing mite drops of 126, 55, 
55, and 6 on the hives with screened bottom boards.

It appears that survival is somewhat dependent on young queens. An 
indicator of survival in the fall is a willingness to take down feed.

                                    Best regards

                                    Donald Aitken

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm