In my opinion todays bees which are "living with varroa" year around and the virus etc. are simply not as strong as what we ran before varroa. I believe all the old timers would agree? comments old timers? If you read the old books of a 100 years ago it was recommended to not try and winter a hive with less than 20 frames of bees. Before mites we could go into winter with 20 frames and come out with 12-15. Now we go in with 9-11 and end up in spring with 6-7 as an average in the Midwest. Bees used to take the stress much better. Pesticides are weakening immune systems at times which is hard to diagnos . Beekeeping if very different today than fifty years ago when I started in beekeeping. bob ******************************************************* * Search the BEE-L archives at: * * http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?S1=bee-l * *******************************************************