> Frankly, I doubt bees that have been starved will ever amount to much, unless > they have a long time until winter and lots of ideal conditions. There is a lot to be said for killing or "Culling" as Dave puts it. However if you only have one or two hives then this is not an option. This method would therefor only be used if you wanted to save the colony for some reason. A couple of thought occur regarding this method. One is that it is possible illegal to use this method in Britain although I think the laws regarding this are a bit outdated as are any other laws regarding bees and beekeeping. The second thought is you would have to think about the source of the disease. I suspect that most of the hives become infected though robbing and after "curing" your colony they may return to the original source and become re-infected. With regard to culling in general I think this must depend on your reason for keeping bees. If you are only interested in profit from your bees then culling is probably your best option. However if you are interested in keeping bees then killing them seems a bit silly. Harry, Scottish Bee Issues:- http://www.luichartwoollens.freeserve.co.uk