Pushing bees down into singles isn't a new idea at all, as we know. Here it is described in 1967. This practice is common today in the North East region.

North-Central Region

Some colonies are killed in the fall and the equipment
is stored; then hives are restocked in the
spring with packages of bees and a queen is purchased
from sou them beekeepers. Others are
wrapped with insulation and tar paper for winter
protection. Some are left with ample stores of
honey and pollen in locations protected from wind
and exposed to warming sunlight. Still others
have most of the honey removed, and the hive
is reduced to a single brood nest that is trucked
to the Southeast, where it is allowed to build up
and be divided to form new colonies. It is returned
to the North in the spring for fruit pollination
before the main honey flow. 

BEEKEEPING REGIONS IN THE UNITED STATES
By W. P. NYE, apiculturist, Entomology Research Division, Agricultural Research Service

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