Pete wrote..."Ontario beekeepers have basically shown that they can produce a very good crop of honey by confining the queen to the first story with an excluder and adding as many supers as the bees can fill. In fall, they take off all the honey and feed the one story units until they are full of syrup. So it definitely works."

During the early 1950's in Northern Minnesota, we overwintered in 3 deeps. The top deep was always full of honey and the second about half or more full. The rule of thumb was 150 pounds for the winter. It was rare then that we lost a colony. The problem was always hives overflowing with bees in the Spring. During April and May club meetings the discussion was centered on what to do with all the bees. Most did not want to grow so splitting was not always an option. There was always a flurry of activity trying to find someone who would take the splits, free. Often we were forced to grow to avoid major swarming issues. Perhaps one deep would have kept the colonies more in check and helped to avoid the overflow problem. I do not recall ever considering it. A recent University of Minnesota class I attended included 3 deep overwintering so apparently it remains the approach taken by some in the Northern tier. 
Gary  

 

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