I need your thoughts, I have been open barrel feeding my colonies.  When I
check the weight of hives, I find many of them feel excellent or normal, and
others are small and light weight (too light).

Since the hives are small and light weight, I guess that there is something
wrong and they will not make it on their own.  I would like to take steps to
make the best of the situation.  I treated for mites properly and all is in
order.  My goal is to come through winter with as many healthy hives as
possible.

Here are some of my options:
1.  Just feed them additional syrup with a pail on top and try to overwinter
them above a strong colony.
2.  Unite 1 light weight colony with 1 strong colony (newspaper method).
3.  Unite two light weight colonies together to try make one strong
one(newspaper method)
4.  Give each light weight colony a new queen( I have some mating nucs that I
could unite them with), and then feed them additional syrup.

Chris Hiemstra
Ontario, Canada