After all the great information you guys have taken the time to pass on to me recently I just wanted to let you all know what I did in an attempt to strengthen this very weak colony with a queen that has genetics I really want to preserve.
We enjoyed a beautiful day yesterday with about 4hrs with no wind and temperatures above 60degF, 15.5degC for you Finski. My original plan was to find and capture the queen in the colony that started this whole thing by swarming in September and placing her and a generous number of bees in a nuc I had prepared. The nuc would consist of a deep and medium box. The medium box filled with capped honey, the deep filled with 3 frames of honey/pollen and 2 empty brood frames. Then install my desired Russian queen with her meager number of subjects in the place that had been occupied by the previously mentioned colony and do a paper combine with the left over bees as well as have the foragers return home to their home location.
Well things didn't work out that way because I couldn't find the queen in the donor hive. I looked and looked but no luck, I know she is there but she hid very well and the population was large. So what I did was install my desired queen in the nuc, stole a frame of capped brood from the donor hive and swapped the locations of the hives. Now the strong hives foragers will return to the weak hive and increase their population. This combined with the smaller space to keep warm and the honey stores I hope will give my Russian queen a fighting chance to survive winter. I also gave each colony a pollen patty just cause.
Feel free to comment or be critical. I value your input.