Wow, long discussion! We routinely take mite-heavy, DWV-symptomatic (showing signs of DWV such as deformed wings and dying pupae) hives, eliminate the mites with a strong formic treatment, requeen, and see them rapidly recover. Ditto for when I've created "sick yards" to stock with all our sick colonies (other than AFB, which we burn. and EFB. which we hit with OTC). About half turn around without treatment, the rest die. We place the deadouts on the recovered ones as honey supers, and all works fine. I don't want bees that I need to baby. If they can't handle frames from deadouts, screw 'em. So long as we manage varroa and provide good nutrition, we see few sick colonies, other than the occasional case of EFB in the spring. -- Randy Oliver Grass Valley, CA www.ScientificBeekeeping.com *********************************************** 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