T, I guess I lucked out when I bought my hives. The old beek that had had them treated. He had got down with cancer one spring and died the next Feb. His hives had no treatment the year he got sick or the year the died. When I found out about the bees and his daughter and I got together on price etc, I got them in Dec. I am not sure how many he had but there was three still going good. Brood chambers were in bad shape, I replaced those, went from single to double deeps. The first year I made almost as much with the honey I sold, as I paid for the hives. It was less than 100 dollars from what I had in the three hives. These hives had made it with no one taking care of them. They had a good amount of SHB's, I have got and kept down their numbers. I haven't treated for mites at all going on four years. I have bought a few queens. The hives were a mix of Hygienic, and other bees. I had 1 hive that lost their queen, I got a Cordovan to replace her. The next year I replaced another hives queen, couldn't find a Cordovan so got a Russian. I usually feed under a gal of sugar syrup per hive a year, try to leave more than enough honey for them. OK got to rambling. Good luck to all with your bees.
Joe