When we talk about nucs and packages I think we need to be careful about what we are talking about.
1.  Is the nuc or package going on drawn comb or foundation?  This makes a huge difference.  If going on drawn comb and there is any nectar flow at all you might well not need to feed a drop of syrup.  If going on foundation a package needs to be fed 50 pounds of sugar and the nucs I sell half that where I live.  How many beginners have the slightest clue what they need to feed?  In my experience just about none of them.  "Gee, I feed them five or eight pounds of sugar and thought that was a lot" is a normal response.  Then many also get sucked into buying one of those essential oil stimulants to add to the syrup which actually act as feeding inhibitors and think they do not need to feed as their bees are hardly taking any syrup at all.  I am unable to convince my neighbor after years of talking that feeding inhibitor addition is why her bees never take more than a small dribble of syrup.  I even told my neighbor to pour the stuff down the drain.  But the advertisement says it will make healthy bees so it does not get dumped.
2.  What is your geography?  If you are down south, say longitude below Tennessee, you can do just about anything you desire including not treating for mites.  If you are north of there and do not treat for mites your hive will die.  It might take two or three years but it will die.  So, be bloody careful where the person lives giving you advice and does he/she understand how important climate is?  Odds are internet advice will stink much of the time.
3.  Did the buyer do an alcohol wash on the package or nuc the day he bought them and take appropriate steps depending on the mite count?  Even if the count happens to be low is it low because the seller just whacked the mites last week and you still have a colony full of virus loaded bees?  Do, you know what to look for to decide roughly how bad your virus level is?  And if the virus level looks high did anyone tell you that feeding even more sugar will help?  Plus did anyone tell you are likely going to see mite counts go up fast if your bees are virus loaded so need to do frequent washes until you see virus symptoms drop off in three months?
4.  Did anyone tell the buyer that people have bitched about queen quality and early supersedure of package queens since the inception of the package bee business.  This is particularly true if installing on foundation.  It is not worse today than it was 100 years ago.  Lots of queens do not last long.  You can help survival greatly if you can give one frame of sealed brood at installation.  If you do not have that frame of brood beg or buy or borrow a frame from someone if possible.

The biggest honey producer in the state of Ohio does not winter his bees.  He buys southern packages headed by Georgia queens every spring and puts them on drawn comb.  Come fall he shakes all his hives and sells the bees.  Year after year he makes a living doing this with southern bees and queens.  He floods his area with southern drones.  Yet those in his area that winter hives have it no easier or harder than anyone else as far as I can tell.  My bet is just testing southern queens from one source is a totally meaningless exercise.  If you want to know about southern queens performance you need to test a whole bunch of sources.  In my rather limited experience southern queens are just as good as the ones I raise for myself on average.  Just as good at making honey, just as calm and just as good at surviving winter.  And, yes I did buy one batch of southern queens that were all very poor.  One out of five made it thru the first winter and that one was superseded in the spring.  Did this have anything to do with where they were raised or did something go wrong during shipping?  I would bet on shipping personally.

Dick

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