I appreciate the information and recommendations from everyone on my strong
hive.  I was called out to remove a swarm of bees from some conveyor belt
supports in a rock quarry 2-3 summers ago and got enough bees to cover 2
deep frames.  The majority of the swarm was crushed in the equipment which
continued to operate the entire time I was there.  The mother of the queen
in my strong hive came with that swarm.  They are small black bees, as are
most of mine.  I never planned to not treat them for mites, it just
happened.  I ordered enough meds for the hives I had and then picked up some
more swarms.  That swarm built up so fast that I decided to take a chance on
it.  The next year the same thing happened, only this time the hive was much
bigger than my other ones and so it was an easy decision to let them go
without meds.  I moved the mother to a weak hive in the fall and let the
original hive raise a new queen.  The hive the mother was moved to did well
until midwinter when some kids knocked over 4 of my hives, including that
one.  I was out of town and when I came back, Arkansas had had temps in the
high teens to low 20's for 6 days and the hive had died.  They had still
been fairly small going into winter.  I can live with the aggression but
there are people around that I do not want to get hurt (a lot of trespassers
on 4 wheelers primarily).  However, the idea of having strong hives is
obviously nice.  Are my other hives small for Arkansas this time of year?
12-15 deep frames of bees with 8-10 frames of brood 5-7 days ago?  Anyone
know?
Thanks,
James

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