Two of my hives have not been doing very good. I requeened them late in the year and they never really got over the hump. While doing my routine PMIs on the hives I noticed one had some minor problems with wax moths in three of the frames. So I pulled out the contaminated frames before the moths spread to the others and also had some problems with ants. Well I got passed the troubles but the colonies just didn't have enough mass to make through the winter. One in fact just kept getting a little smaller as time went on. This one in particular was down to a double fist size cluster. I have a hive top feeder in the hive but each time I checked, the bees just stayed clustered on the frames, and didn't seem to eat. And there was no activity out of the hive. Well, with the cold weather, things was looking bad, so I had to do something. A buddy had several old waterbed heaters he didn't need so I moved the hives up to my maintenance shed where I could keep them in the dry and also where I have electric current. I then folded up the water bed heaters where they would fit in the hives, and placed the thermostat down between the frames and plugged them in and set the control to 85 degrees. The very next day it looked like spring time around the hives, there were bees flying in and out, working up a storm. I took the lid off for just a quick peek and bees were crawling all around the hive. I don't know if it will save the colonies or not, but right now things are looking up.
Dave