We have certainly strayed from the thread name but a great discussion all the same. This is a fine education for newer beeks as well as us old timers. Very important! Please say where you are when describing your methods.

I am in SE WA State. Wheat country annual precip. about 19" half winter snow half spring rain. Almost none summer and fall. We have severe cold (-10 to +10 F for a couple of weeks and +10  to +30 F for 4 months) humidity is low. This year was the worst in memory, went 84 days without a cleansing, er... my bees that is not me. I winter in 2 deeps with 10 to 12 frames of capped honey in Oct. No winter feeding or candy boards, No wrap, solid bottoms, entrance reduced to 3/8 X 4", no holes in boxes but a 1/4" shim between top of inner cover and telescoping lid. All winter here at home in full sun tipped forward a foot off the ground and I clear snow covered entrances if it has been more that a week or so. < 1% mites after fall treatment confirmed by sampling of around 25% of colonies. Winter loss has never been over 10% with this system in 15 years. Of those losses almost all are queen issues. 

Things I have tried and found not to make a difference for me here. Top 1" Styrofoam insulation between inner and top cover, black wrap, top ventilation/entrances, candy boards, screened bottoms, and group stack and wrap.

Spring and summer management. I do reverse brood boxes once in early spring when the bottom is essentially empty and then when they are well brooded up I move most open brood to the bottom again and leave at least 4 frames empty drawn and 2 new foundation in the center of the top. At this visit they get an excluder and the first super (westerns). All brood boxes are 10 frames, no feeders. All feeding is by top gallon buckets. Next visit (9-14 days) if they have not moved into the super I will remove the excluder for a few days making sure I don't trap the queen when it goes back on. Swarming is still an issue, maybe 15% but much less than before this routine. Then off to the races. Empty or wet supers go on just above the excluder and I pull 2 off the top when 3/4 capped trying to not get more than 4 supers high at a time. Even then this old man needs a step stool. Unless I see some problem I am not back in the brood boxes (a few random mite counts excepted) until late Aug. and fall mite treatment and queen replacement. I don't necessarily believe that fall queen replacement is best but that is when my own raised queens are ready and tested. We have a good spring flow with a surplus half the time, slight dearth in May and a strong summer and fall until frost. 

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

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