Feeding sugar and moving hives were two factors that seemed to cause little or no harm to honey bee colonies: Feeding practice (type of food and date of last feeding) had no significant influence on overwinter mortality of colonies. Migratory operations had lower total losses than stationary operations. Colonies are moved regionally and mainly to provide them with good food resources or to produce special types of honey. As stressed before, V. destructor is a constant threat for honey bee colonies and seems to be responsible for higher overwinter mortality. See: Surveys as a tool to record winter losses of honey bee colonies: a two year case study in Austria and South Tyrol Journal of Apicultural Research 49(1): 23-30 (2010) © IBRA 2010 *********************************************** 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