>  We go through the top box which had frames with foundation. Bottom box was all drawn comb. Any frames which were not drawn out we pull and replace with fully drawn frames. <snip>  We also pull frames of pollen from the winter cluster. Bees need honey to cluster over. We also fed hives still light .

Up here, we are reluctant to rearrange boxes this late.  Comparisons
have shown that disturbing brood chambers after September results in
vastly increased loss, even if the beekeeper does so only to arrange
things the way he sees as ideal. Of course undrawn foundation up there
is a bad thing too.  I'm seeing a little of that, too, so find myself
conflicted.

> We went to using a spacer on our hives when feeding pollen patty or applying formic or thymol <snip> so the last couple years we have wintered with the spacers on. ( with great results).

> Do others on the list winter bees with spacers on?

I had quite a few inner covers with a one inch space above the frames
which we used inside wraps very successfully.  Bees seem to like
having a bit of space above the comb, and that actually presents me a
problem when I try to remove some late supers.  The bees have gone
down out of them, but some -- a hundred or so -- stay on the bottom of
the frames above the gap.

Just under the top of the frames, with some in the gap -- that seems
to be their favourite position in a box at this time of year.

One warning, though, never provide enough empty space above the
cluster that more than a small portion of the cluster leaves the comb.

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