Very interesting article.

One would wonder, though, about colonies left packed in singles or doubles into late May and June.  In my experience, in Central Alberta, many hives left packed in singles or doubles until late May or June would have plugged up and/or swarmed most years.

At the time, indoor wintering was typically in cellars and climate control was primitive at best, so do the results apply to today's high-tech facilities?
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Some of the recommendations like wintering in the basement of a home, I would question, too, but they were for those times and based on the specific conditions and availabilities of those times. 

Although the observations and methods are still credible, systems and metrics for indoor wintering have evolved considerably since that time, so the conclusions may not hold today, at least in specific cases.

When  the US/Canada border was closed,  throwing the Western Canadian industry into panic mode, I was hired to inspect the indoor facilities of beekeepers who applied for wintering grants.  At that point few beekeepers had previously overwintered to any extent and even those that did needed package bees to make up losses, at least in some years.  

That is still true.  Package bees are still imported in large numbers even by many who wnter. Although some folks have surplus overwintered bees some years, and there are always loud and confident claims that the Prairies can be self-sufficient, that has never materialised.  On average AFAIK about 10% of the hive numbers on the Canadian prairies are replaced with packages annually even today because of risk factors.  That is a separate topic.)

At border closure, initially some facilities were very crude and bound to have poor results. Others were more advanced, but everyone had varying degrees of success in the early years. 

Since then, those wintering indoors on the Canadian Prairies  have become more experienced and continue to communicate their successes and failures, their methods, and their observations.  As a result the methods have become more refined and results more predictable.

(One previously unappreciated factor that apparently was discovered in the eighties was that, regardless of air circulation and climate control, there is a maximum number of colonies that should be stocked per volume of storage space, and that simply putting in as many hives as will fit, as many did, is not advisable.)

As I mentioned earlier, some beekeepers winter both indoors and out.  This reduces the risk and takes advantage of each method for specific types of colonies and locations.

Does one have a decided advantage?  Apparently not, since wintering success, at least on commercial scale, is a moving target.

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