<<Have you noticed that the people who succeed in keeping bees treatment
free year after year nearly all live in very warm winter climates?  Their
bees do well enough in some cases they routinely make honey yields equal or
better than the state average where they live.  Yet, over and over you
bring those queens into my climate and the mites kill them just as fast as
the mites kill any other bee.>>>

I don't think that's climate based, or winter survival based. The same
thing happens to me, and I live in a warm (ish) area of central NC. I've
tried purported Treatment Free bees from TX, FL, MS, VA, VT, and some from
NC. In all instances, they succumb to mites the same as any other bee. I've
long suspected there is an additional element to almost all purported
treatment free genetics, either management style or geographic location
(other than climate). From 2005-2011 I was a treatment free beekeeper,
until I lost all 62 hives in a 4 month time frame. I spent a ton of time
trying to find out why I failed while others didn't, and never found an
acceptable answer (to me).

<<If you are in Alabama you can tolerate a lot more mites and viruses in
August than you can tolerate in Ohio in August.>>

I don't think this is true. Colonies in Alabama will continue to rear brood
for longer into the winter than colonies in Ohio, if they stop rearing
brood at all. Which gives mites a significantly longer time period to
increase in size, causing damage throughout the winter and spring. In many
parts of NC, the queen may only shut down brood rearing for 30-45 days.
Some years not at all. A colony with a 2% infestation rate in August in
Ohio may have a problem rearing healthy bees to overwinter, but the mites
aren't likely to explode late in the fall or over winter. A colony with a
2% infestation rate in August in Alabama may find an infestation rate of
8%+ in October, and will likely continue to increase through February. The
Alabama colony may not have a hard time rearing healthy bees to overwinter
(as the winter is more mild), but it's likely a moot point as an 8%
infested colony is dead anyway.

Personally the thought of insulating or wrapping my colonies hasn't even
crossed my mind in over a decade. I've always found that if I have (i)
young, healthy queens, (ii) low mite counts, and (iii) adequate honey
stores, ~90% of my overwintering problems are solved. While I haven't kept
bees in Michigan, Meghan Milbrath's articles led me to believe it was the
same way in the northern part of the US. But I don't know that from
personal experience. It always humors me when I attend a bee meeting and
someone talks about building a quilt board, building hives out of 1.5"
thick lumber to provide greater insulation, or how they came up with a
special pollen/fondant board mixture to feed throughout the winter, and
that will solve all their overwintering problems. Next year they come back,
it didn't solve anything, and they do it all over again. Lewis Cauble, an
NC bee inspector, wrote an article (either Bee Culture or ABJ, can't
remember) a few months back that mirrored my sentiments exactly.

Of course, I don't overwinter colonies in Alaska. Different battles, but
we're all fighting the same war.

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