I try to make sure they have plenty of food, make sure they havent filled in the space along the sidewalls with comb, (Recut the bee space if they have filled it in.)  and, I must admit, feed them sugar over notches cut in the top bars in about march. (Lift lid, pour sugar about hole, add small stick or stones, and leave lid propped about 3/4 inch.  (Telescoping style lid.)
I tried punching holes in the combs with an apple corer to let the bees commute from comb to comb, but they tend to winter on one side or the other of the hive, so that the cluster can wrap around the edge of the combs.   I gave up on the holes.  It may be a symptom that the combs are too large, because the honey on the other side of the hive/ comb generally remains untouched.  (The cluster doesn't cover and wrap around the whole comb, and they cannot go over the top, as they do in a langstroth, unless the bar is notched, and the lid is tilted.)
This spring when I ws able to fully open the hive and check on them, I had about 4 inches of honey along the left hand side of the brood nest.  The combs were empty in the middle and along the right side, and the bees were clustered towards the right, and starting to starve because they had lost the queen, and the cluster was shrinking rapidly.  I combined the bees left with one of my Langstroth hives, and restocked the TBH with a split in May.   Although losing the queen is NOT typical, the pattern of cluster movement seems to be.  They start out near the bottom of the combs in fall, move upward, and then towards one side or the other.  They move backward along the edge of the combs if weather permits, but in Michigan, in February and March, weather doesn't usually permit.  Even in the cold, they will take sugar placed around notches cut in the top bars, So I feed them to see them thru between breaks in the weather.
I did notice, this year, that the bees do better <after> I prop up the lid and give them sugar.  I think the added ventilation is doing them even more good than the sugar.  About half the Bars in the whole hive are notched (3/8 inch x3 inch notches, cut on one side of bar.  Most of the notches are in the brood area.)  so quite a bit of upper ventilation is provided when I lift the lid.  Maybe I'll try leaving it propped slightly all winter this year.

Ellen
  Dennis Murrell <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Hi Ellen and Everyone,

Long hives in Michigan. Very interesting! How do overwinter the bees? Do
the bees learn to move horizontally?

Best Wishes
Dennis Murrell