> What puzzles me is how they were able to successfully over winter such small colonies, the typical hive being about equivalent to a single story 8 frame hive.

Depends on the race of bee.  We normally keep all of our colonies of near-native A.m.m. in single British National boxes throughout the summer and winter and frequently see colonies come out of winter on perhaps 4 frames - sometimes on just 2 frames.  These build well and for me would be ideal if they covered 7 frames at the time that oilseed rape started to flower (this used to be the first week of May, but with new varieties and global warming we often see it in flower much earlier).  Before OSR started to bloom earlier it was not unusual for some of these colonies to gather over 200lbs of honey from this crop alone.

For the past 35 years we have seen our A.m.m. colonies go on to produce an average of just under 70lbs of honey (based on the number of colonies fed the previous autumn, not just the ones that survived into spring) - more than double the crop usually regarded as the norm for the UK.

A few years ago many beekeepers in the UK were using WBC hives which have the same frame size as the British National, but only hold 10 frames rather than the 11 of the National - and some people would even put dummy boards both ends leaving room for just 9 frames.

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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