> I run three deeps - so they have plenty of winter stores.  The situation I ran into this past winter was that ALL my hives chimneyed up three deeps, leaving lots of stores in the hives.  Combined, there was more than a deep of full frames left in most hives. 

I was going to leave this one alone; there is just not enough information, but here goes.

There is something fishy about this and I can't put my finger on it.  Was there too much white comb?  Were the hives in the shade or wind?  Were the bees in good health going in?  Was there any insulation on the hives?  Insulated lids are the bare minimum for cold country wintering.  What was the ventillation situation?  It sure sounds as if these bees were cold and never got any respite from the warmth of sun or breaks in the weather.  If they had, they would have spread out at least some of the time and mobilized resources nearby.  That brings us to the next issue: honey quality.

> Clusters were at the tops of the frames of the top deep and extending down onto the frames, some relatively small (e.g. NWC), but some really big (e.g. Italian, Russian).  These were not weak colonies in the fall that went into winter marginal and/or low on stores, and this occurred across several strains, including Russian, Buckfast Minnesota Hygienic, NWC, Sooper Yooper. 

Obviously, it was not the genetics.  It seems clearly to be the beekeeper's set-up and/or practises.  What was the honey like?  Hard, granulated?  Honey sometimes does not make the best winter feed, especially if it is rock-hard and the hive interior is dry.  Insulation and dark wrapping saves quite a bit of feed consumption, previous to that, too, delaying arrival at the top.. 

Large hives eat a lot more, too.  FWIW, my insulated (EPS BeeMax boxes)  three-storey hives on a scale consumed a measured average of *75 pounds* from October through the beginning of April.  

My friends wintered clusters in singles in similar EPS boxes, starting with probably less than 75 pounds and they wintered well, with feed left, but of course their clusters were still small at the same time one of mine in three was thinking of swarming.  Some of mine have made four to seven good splits by now.  I doubt that after equalizing, theirs made any.  (Not that they intended to, their goals were different).

> The ones I managed to save by adding dry sugar have boomed, and I've made splits to build back up. 

The fact that sugar saved them says something to me.  Also, I'm with Gavin: insulation overhead helps a lot.  Without it, many hives die of apparent staravtion when they hit the lid because the lid suck up their heat and they cannot spread out.

I hope that Bob comments because his insights into such situations are always dead-on and he often spots things I miss.

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