I replied to this the other day. While packing bees later in the day, I realized
- I just hit reply. Must have forgotten where I was. Good ole Bee-L. Anyway---

    What does "completely stocked" mean? I believe that you can feed too much
syrup to a colony in preparation for winter. Don't forget that bees need
clustering space. This isn't just the space between the combs, but also the
empty cells within the combs. If everything is filled with syrup, the clustering
space is used up. The slabs of syrup divide the cluster, and act as a heat sink,
stealing heat from the cluster. Weigh your colonies to feed them the correct
amount of syrup. A two story colony with no honey weighs about 70 lbs. Add to
that the weight of the honey needed to over winter. I would think that in New
Jersey a colony should weigh about 135 lbs. That would leave about 65 lbs of
feed.
    Winter the colonies one above another, with a solid inner cover (one with
the escape hole closed) between them. Each will need an upper entrance. Or, you
could winter each on top of a strong colony with the inner cover between them.
Up north, many nucleus colonies are sucessfully overwintered this way.

Curtis Crowell wrote:
  If the hives are not completely "stocked" for
winter, I assume

> I can leave the feeders in until spring, filling them up as weather permits.
>
>  It occurred to me that I might also combine weak hives, placing an Imrie
> shim between the
>  two to conserve heat.
> l
>
>  /