"Have you considered using a Snellgrove board and placing your weak colonies above strong ones so that the weak ones can utilize the heat generated by the strong colonies? "

That may be an excellent suggestion if you live in LA.  Where I live when you get down to a population of less than 750 sick bees on March 1 you would not save the hive by moving it into my living room unless you gave it a half pound of bees and a frame of emerging brood.  It might well also need a new queen to survive.  It is a far better plan to control mites starting the prior July at the latest so you go into winter with healthy bees.  Also why risk moving the viruses that are killing the sick hive into a healthy hive and risk making it real sick also?  Some hives are simply better off dead.  Every year the vast majority of my hives survive and every spring I sell over wintered nucs to people who did not control mites the prior summer so they had healthy bees that would over winter.  When I get careless or lazy and do not control mites adequately my hives die too.  Is this all so complex?  I give my dog a heart worm pill every month so she does not die of heart worms.  Why not give my bees the same type of care and prevent a fatal virus infection?

Dick

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