I recently attended a talk by Joe Latshaw on wintering nucs in polystyrene hives he buys out of Canada.  These have two inch walls so are well insultated.  Joe found them too hot in southern OH summers and too wet in winters.  His solution was to cut a hole large in the bottom with a saw and cover the hole with quarter inch mesh hardware cloth simply placed on the inside bottom and not attached.  The hole looked to be about 50% or more of the bottom inside dimension area of the nucs.  The nucs hold five deep frames.  He generally winters in four over five configuration with a feeder in the fifth top spot that he never removes although it has no feed in in during winter.  The nucs are placed on hive stands a couple of feet off the ground so he can work them without leaning over much.  Where Joe lives it seldom gets below zero but there is a lot of teens and sub teens all winter and is flat land so a bunch of wind.  He finds they winter much better and are stronger in early spring compared to wood boxes.  No top ventilation but tons of bottom ventilation.  The top box is just like the bottom box with the hole cut in the bottom but no screen of course.  The bees do chew up the foam a bit.
 

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