That's the truth. 

The problem arises when that 10% looks more like 30 or 40 percent in the spring. What do you do?

The saying is, however, that your first loss is your best loss and that hope is not a strategy. Bite the bullet and combine them. Anything else  is likely to lead to worse failure

Successful commercial beekeepers don't waste any time with colonies that don't look promising unless they really have to --unless that's all they've got left.

In my operation if I came across a colony that was failing I just Checked it over for disease and stacked it up on another one or two similar colonies and went away. 

When I came back sometime later either they had developed into a good looking colony or I had a lot of empty boxes. 

Whatever the result I hadn't wasted my precious time trying to nurse them back to life.

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