Sounds like you run single deeps. I'll give my method of long standing for your consideration. I run double deeps year round with excluders on during honey production. I hate brood in pulled supers (slows extraction way down). I have white comb mediums that have not seen brood for up to 20 years. 

Coming out of winter the bees will be in the upper deep with still a couple of frames of honey. The bottom is mostly empty and on one of the first inspections they get reversed and an excluder  and medium go on. We get a reasonable early spring crop of mixed floral source that is not my favorite so I let the girls have it to stock their brood nest as they move up. Typically they do not move above the excluder until they have a couple of the outside frames and maybe an inch or so honey dome. By mid May a real flow starts and they move into the supers with gusto. I'll add supers up to 4 and then start bottom supering and pulling the top 2 for extraction. This separates the spring crop (canola, purple vetch, and black locust) from the the much more desirable summer crop of yellow starthistle. In early Aug. I'll stop adding suppers and pull full ones leaving one part full or empty so as to prevent a gooey mess if we get a late surge. The bees will definitely start plugging the nest below the excluder with good fall honey, mixed source, but I'm fine with that. Very little fall feeding and if I get 150 to 200# of premium honey why be greedy? By late Sept. everything comes off for easy extraction of empty's and part fulls. By then the top box has lots of honey and total hive weight will be 150 to 175#. Any that are lighter will be fed until they reach weight.  

No winter feeding of any kind, a little spring and fall as needed. Lets a broke down old geezer keep going well past his "best used date". Now in serious decrepitude I have 25 to 30 but this worked for up to 300. 

Paul
47N 119W  Eastern WA

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