Mites - Where I'm At & What To Do

[antaro]

One of my hives is living the life of infestation. Drone brood has multiple mites on it, I can see mites riding around on the back of the girls, and the last inspection showed multiple bees with deformed wings.

My questions are thus:

1. How darned is this hive? Does this sound like a mortal infestation?
2. What can be done? I don't want to treat with chemicals. Is it too late for much else?

Thanks in advance.

[samuils]

Well, the mites can be taken care of with powdered sugar, you just dust bees with it, toss it on top of them. 

Not sure how deformed the wings are, in what way? K wing?

Here is from Michael s book

http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm

[Michael Bush]

Cut out all the drone brood and feed it to the chickens (if you have some)... :)

[indypartridge]

Besides cutting out drone brood as Michael suggests, if you're going to use powdered sugar, you'll have to do it multiple times. Once a week for three weeks at a minimum.

If the hive is weakened, but the queen still doing well, consider giving the hive a boost by adding a frame of capped brood from another colony.

[danno]

powder the noses if you like as suggested but most likely they are goners.  deformed wing virus means something should have been done long ago