Hello All,
Tim wrote:
Many deadouts with nearly full food chambers of honey, perhaps too much
 honey. I did find much deffication in the hives which I can attribute to
 the solid 4 plus months of temperatures not rising above 35 degress F. My
 gut feeling is the prolonged cold was the number one factor in the high
 mortality this year. Normally we can expect one or two spells of "warm"
 weather to allow the bees cleansing flights and regrouping form December to
 February.I usually only lose 3 or 4 colonies out of 30 to 40 each year.

Look closely at the deadouts and you should be able to figure out the source
of the problem.

 Oddly enough, 8 out of 36 came through in banner conditon with 9 others
 coming through the winter with only two or three frames of bees. I also
 wintered 30 4-frame nucs which appear to have done better overall than my
 established colonies.

Look carefully at these and see what was done differently on these as
compared to the deadouts. Send a sample of the survivors in to be checked
for tracheal mites and nosema. If  tracheal mites or nosema were part of the
problem then I would guess at least some level of problem should show up in
the survivor sample.

 Any suggestions as to best utilize this excess? Ideally I
 would like to "convert" as much of this honey into drawn comb.

Keep adding the honey frames to the outside of the expanding spring brood
nest. The bees will empty the brood rearing area so the queen can lay eggs
and move the honey to the honey area around other brood rearing frames .
Bob