a couple of snips from Peter B. response followed by > my comments...


Some hives are simply better off dead.

I am afraid most backyard beekeepers and a lot of others simply don't get this. The old way, decades ago, was to "take your losses in the fall."

>a dink is a dink until it ain't.  Which is to say there are any number of reason for a hive to fail to thrive and some of these reasons can be corrected with a bit of beekeeper applied intervention (manipulation). I am no purist on these sorts of question so on many occasions I do just as Peter suggest above and I take my losses in the fall of the year.  If however I see a well formed and functional queen and a small population that looks like it could make a short and mild Texas winter (but is lacking in population) I will stack the week colony above a strong colony with a double screen in-between and a feeder in each part. I feed just a wee bit and as my tops and bottoms are identical I turn the top entry (top cover) towards the back of the hive.  I feed for a short while and then toss on a queen excluder and newspaper, remove the feeder in the bottom boxes and feed some more. After about a week the two population have pretty much equalized and I (no time frame required) set the top box off on it's own bottom.   

imho a lot of dink are simply units that for a host of reason are failing to gain population and a boost in population and a wee bit of feed changes them from a dink to a functional bee hive.

Gene in Central Texas...  

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