Interesting discussions. I first got interested in using triples when I had 
a few outyards and I didn't want to have to deal with feeding. The multiple 
brood chambers could hold a nice reserve of honey, year to year. But of 
late I am encountering a potential drawback to overwintering in triples. 
Provisioning them as C. L. Farrar, F.E. Moeller and others recommended 
leaves the colonies going nice and heavy into winter, with very large (90 
lbs.?) sealed-honey and pollen reserves. However, if some colonies die 
during the winter, for whatever reason, you can end up with about two 
deeps' worth of old honey, in brood combs, which has either granulated or 
fermented. This can be a pain to deal with in the spring. Sure, you can 
restock, but it might be quite a while until all those combs get emptied so 
they are of use for brood rearing again. 

Some colonies such as Russians and Carniolans typically won't need such 
large reserves for wintering. On the other hand, in some years I have seen 
Italian types keep breeding well into the fall such that they burn up much 
of the honey in the top (3rd) deep and replace it with brood before the 
cold weather sets in. So it can be hard to say what the optimum amount of 
stores, or optimum size of hive, is. Of course, too, the food can be there, 
and if the placement isn't just right, they can still starve.

This year, for us, some clusters didn't come close to burning through the 
volume of provisions they were left with. I am having to remove some full 
combs of honey, much of it granulated solid, to free up space for egg 
laying. But at least they didn't starve.

Being an enthusiastic backyard hobbyist, I have the luxury of extracting 
more of the honey and leaving them with somewhat less, in the fall, since I 
can keep an eye on them and easily feed in spring if it becomes necessary. 
This can help do away with problematic excesses of granulated or spoiled 
stores, should the colonies succumb during winter. Plus I can harvest more 
honey to pack. $$  Sugar is cheap. 

It has become more difficult to predict overwintering success with 
confidence, with all the added stresses on the colonies in recent years. I 
have seen so many fine December clusters (mine and others') dwindle down to 
pathetic handfuls of bees by March. So as yet, it's not obvious what the 
ideal balance is between overharvesting and leaving "too much" honey. 
(Anyone, please chime in here.) Perhaps overwintering in two deeps, and 
leaving a full medium extracting super on top at the end of the season, 
like Mike Palmer has mentioned might be the very best compromise, at least 
in parts of the Northeast. Then they have a full medium of honey above 
their heads, plus whatever they can pack away in the upper deep from the 
fall sources. And they still have lots of room for pollen storage below.

An unlimited brood nest (3 x deep), during buildup, anyway, is great, from 
what I've seen. If your stock is any good, it is conducive to building 
wonderful, booming colonies. Meanwhile, the extra large brood nest delays 
the onset of swarm preps. It certainly doesn't prevent swarming on its own, 
but the swarming doesn't occur so soon, and that gives you more time to 
manage things, IME. And if you don't do that, you might get to see some 
really cool big swarms.  For overwintering, at least in some situations, 
triples loaded heavily with stores might be considered overkill. 

I once asked Roger Morse's opinion on three deep brood nests, back in the 
80s when I was reading a lot of Farrar's old stuff. Dr. Morse wasn't so 
enthusiastic,; he considered triples "exorbitant" and not the best use of 
available equipment. 

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