I am in a similiar situation about 100 miles to the North of you in Essex,
NY near Lake Champlain. I treated last fall for both mites in late August,
had several new queens, and most of my colonies are in sheltered locations.
Many deadouts with nearly full food chambers of honey, perhaps too much
honey. I did find much deffication in the hives which I can attribute to
the solid 4 plus months of temperatures not rising above 35 degress F. My
gut feeling is the prolonged cold was the number one factor in the high
mortality this year. Normally we can expect one or two spells of "warm"
weather to allow the bees cleansing flights and regrouping form December to
February.I usually only lose 3 or 4 colonies out of 30 to 40 each year.
Oddly enough, 8 out of 36 came through in banner conditon with 9 others
coming through the winter with only two or three frames of bees. I also
wintered 30 4-frame nucs which appear to have done better overall than my
established colonies. It won't be a difficult decision as to which quuens I
will graft from this year. I do have a slight problem with excess honey
from my losses. Any suggestions as to best utilize this excess? Ideally I
would like to "convert" as much of this honey into drawn comb.