Dear experienced queen and honey producers, Following your discussion about the quality of queens I was instigated to ask you for an oppinion in the in the following matter: I find how to overwinter small colony with about 3 - 4 thous. bees and a queen. For this purposse special hive is used and the common shallow frame equippment. Thanks to the special ararangment of frames the colonies are able to withstand even wery low temperatures. In our country they survived -25 to -30 deg. C. (I know that this is not much in Canada.) Colonis are then able to develop in spring. In the main season they can be used as mating nucs, source for making divides or other nucs, as testing colonies for queen's progeny (quick change of bees in small units), or as storers for breeder queens which remain longer alive in them. They can serve as small packages for making two queen colonies, too. I am convinced that the special arrangment could be applied also using the normal Langstroth measure. This would allow succesful wintering about two pound packages on only 6 frames. But there is a need of special hive. Since I am only a small scale beekeeper and am not familiar with the factors influencing the market I can hardly imagine if this principle could find any broader use in e.g. comercial beekeeping. Could you spend a few of your time and let me know if the possibility of keeping small units through winter (and all active season as well) could have any sense for large scale beekeepers? With the best wishes Vladimir Ptacek ([log in to unmask]) Smetanova 41, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic