Just to add mud to the water I have always been a minimalist in terms of winter protection.  Both before and after varroa my wintering prep is to put a mouse guard in the entrance and invert the inner cover so the slot in the rim is down.  I often throw extracted supers on top of the hive after extracting the fall crop and those supers stay on until spring.  Right now in my bee yard I have hives with three deeps and three empty supers on top and they will be that way all winter.  I winter a bunch of five over five and five over five over five deep nucs every winter.  Those get a mouse guard and inverted inner cover also.  I have one screened bottom board left on one of my production colonies.  That screen stays wide open all winter.  That hive has never winter killed yet.  I live in NE Ohio.  Sub zero F temps are seen from ten nights to 30 nights in Jan and Feb with rare lows below neg 20 deg F.  My yard is right smack on top of a hill with little wind protection.  Average winter snow fall runs in the 120 to 150 inch range.  I do not clean snow off hives or from snowed in entrances.  I have never seen significant winter losses.  The last three years my winter losses have run close to 10%.  Most losses I see are very early or very late.  That is before Christmas or late March to mid April.  I think early losses are mites and some late losses likely EFB, but also mites.  Death rates in nucs are about the same or a bit lower than in production hives.

I make no claims that this is the right way to do it.

Dick

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