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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