The Current Experiment
Observations
As I have had a feral hive move into the empty hive from last season I have decided to leave these bees totally to their own resources. They moved on to comb that sustained a hive for two years before absconding, which I am sure was due to my constant interference prior to fall. I was fogging every two weeks with FGMO. Then I placed an open feeder to close to the apiary which resulted in my hives getting robbed. Basically I am to blame for 4 hives absconding. The old hive had become hopelessly cross combed and I did not bother the brood nest pretty much all season. That hive survived the winter and 3 others failed. After reading Dennis Murrell’s research on core brood nests and comparing it to what I had convinced me he was on the right track. 
Set Up
This hive received no treatments of any kind. Mite load was not monitored. All observation was conducted at the entrance. The hive was opened three times; once in the spring, once during the summer and once this fall. No bars were moved and no new comb was built. There were no mites observed on the worker bees coming and going (This does not mean they are not there). In early September dead bees and larva appeared on the landing board. This is believed to be nest cleaning. On Sept 6th a solitary bee emerged from the hive and fell off the landing board. It was collected and examined and was suffering from what appeared to be DWV (deformed wing virus) confirmation is in progress as this is written from two different sources one in the United States and one here in Germany. This could also be a bee who has shredded it's wings working.
Update 20 Sept 07
Turns out it is DWV a second bee emerged which is just a small fraction of what is really there as I only sit at the entrance for 15 to 30 min. every couple of days. OK so now we know the mite load on this hive is great enough to cause PMS (parasitic mite syndrome) which has manifested itself in the form of DWV. The good signs are that the colony is removing the infected larvae and they are working the fall flow like mad, lots of pollen comming in.
The question now is; with the added stress will they survive the winter? Goals
Determine if swarms/packages can be installed in TBH hives and survive without any treatments.
If treatments are needed how many, what type (sugar dusting would be perfered) and for how long before treatment is no longer necessary
The pictures are of my home yard as I reconstruct it. 6 hives not pictured are actually the pile of ashes you see around the burn barrel in the background. These hives were constructed of particle board and lasted a few years longer than I anticipated, but waether finally got the best of them!
Update 25 Nov 07
Turns out the answer to the question is NO they will not survive. I had a new beekeeper and his family visiting from the States and while out in the yard discussing TBH's I decided to a quick knock on the side. We heard nothing so we opened it from the bottom so as to perserve the heat best we could but there were only dead bees. We took it apart to inspect and saved samples of brood comb for sizing. We were also able to harvest 3 jars of honey. there was a small fist size cluster dead in the upper right corner right on some of the stored honey and a few bees head first burried in cells. The bees in cells would suggest starvation but the small cluster suggests that they could not generate enough heat to survive the cold. There was NO sign of a moisture problem. I would speculate that this hive became stressed by a higher fall mite load and was robbed. Then the remaning bees absconded and the cluster was the brood that hatched later.
Conclusions
This colony was left alone to fend for it's self. The only observations were made at the hive entrance. No mite testing or monitoring was done. The colony was strong in September a bee with deformed wing virus was spotted; the hive was allowed to continue with no interference. In October the hive fell victim to robbers and absconded. In November the hive was opened and examined a small fist size cluster which was dead was located in the upper right corner of the brood nest. It is my speculation these bee emerged after the colony absconded. A combination of PMS weakening the hive and the additional stress of robbers caused it to abscond. A failure on my part to reduce the entrance in a timely manner was a contributing factor to the failure of this colony. The goal of the experiment could not be determined however PMS was detected as was hygienic behavior. This experiment will be repeated with more strict guidelines next season.
This page updated 20 Jan 08
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