>  How do the colonies in this style of box
survive the winter with so little honey stored above the brood, or am I
missing something?

Well, A.m.m. will survive quite happily on 25lbs or less of stores.

We start varroa treatment in early August after removing the crop and at
that time there is still brood - so not much honey above the top of the
brood in the centre of the box.  With a good autumn brood rearing may
continue well into the autumn, or they may shut down if conditions are
adverse.  As they shut down and the brood area decreases there will be more
stores above the brood - but by then we will have finished varroa treatment.

You have to remember that these bees are so very different from the Italians
that just keep breeding even if they have no food!  A.m.m. can winter as a
very small colony, but they always bounce back in the spring.

Today I inspected a colony that we had doubled up in July.  There were four
frames (British Standard frames) with brood in the bottom box.  The top box
was wall to wall honey - that's 70lbs of it.  Had I left them on a single
box that honey would have been in the supers and improved the 100lbs plus
that I removed today!  Incidentally, they had also superseded their queen,
so we clipped and marked the new one; the old (2010) queen was not found,
but she may well still be there.

Best wishes
 
Peter
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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