Seconded. I am not a commercial beekeeper either. I will be lucky if I don’t lose at least one hive to varroa this year.
Plus:
I can’t do that for queens. My area has 60% africanized bees, so my bee club can’t guarantee a gentle queen. I have a tiny urban plot, and the City will only allow me to keep 2 hives on it if I requeen every 2 years with a known gentle queen. Nice ideas, but not practical for everyone.
We don’t have africanized bees up north but how would a local (Bee club
member) make queens different a commercial shop? I guess I don’t understand
the local atmosphere.
My view point is that we are learning our practices from the wrong source.
Learn from the bees and not any source that has any kind of monetary
involvement. Not everything they say is wrong but none of it can be taken
as truth either, we don’t really know bees well enough. Don’t change what
is working, but start by getting to natural comb and bee size.
If you are restricted to 5 or fewer hive I can’t imagine how you can keep
bees as bees, now they are pets with food and vet bills. I’m not saying its
wrong cause if you help bees you get a thumbs up in my book, but it you are
limited like that you need to view it more as an expensive hobby.
Personally I need my bees to break even or profit, I’m a poor bee keeper 
My plan is to have lots of nucs built for next year and expand my apiary.
Find other locations to place my bees by involving other people that want
to help the bees but maybe can’t supply the time or expertise. If your
location limits your hives, make friends with your neighbors, talk to
family and co-workers. Ask for the help that people can give and you supply
the rest
Good luck wintering all!
It depends how much time you have left on the planet.
The ideal is that you leave all your colonies to fend for themselves. That means not treating with chemicals and not feeding.
You breed only from the survivors and you are isolated from other beekeepers who do not join your scheme. That would work if everybody did it.