# Shortening the stack for winter



## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

Hi, I dont know much about your winters down there, 2 boxes sounds good to me with plenty of honey, but more importantly is taking care of the varroa mites. If your counts are good you will overwinter just fine.


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## LAlldredge (Aug 16, 2018)

I’m 6a and overwinter in a medium, deep, medium. In spring I reverse the mediums. Also use a slatted rack. Most important is mite control followed closely by nutrition. Winter prep and moisture control is 3rd on the list of importance.


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## NUBE (May 24, 2009)

It would be helpful to know what kind of equipment you’re working with (10F deep, 8F deep, 8F medium, etc.). I’m near Raleigh and I’m running two 8F deeps on 3 of my 4 hives. I would have had all 4 in two 8F deeps, but I had an issue with EFB mid summer on one hive and did a shook swarm restart on it. There was little chance they were going to build out 16 frames before it got too cold, so I’m running them as a pretty strong single through winter. If you have brood in both boxes I, personally, wouldn’t chuck any of that brood in order to get them compressed into a single. If the top box is full of honey, nectar or syrup I’d leave it be and harvest any supers. If the top brood box doesn’t have honey, I’d still likely leave it and then leave a super on top for them to overwinter on. Unless of course the top brood box is very empty, in which case, even with your fairly mild winter, I wouldn’t care for that much dead space and I would remove that box and leave a full super of honey for them.

Where you are located, as long as mites are under control, I would likely not be too concerned with their chances of making it through winter in most any configuration. My concern would be with how quickly they will be trying to grow in early spring. I’d want ample stores on them so they don’t starve out late February, early March from the rare, but very possible, chance of having a poor start to the year with regards to the timing of the beginning of your flow.


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## birddog (May 10, 2016)

You need to consider the size of your winter cluster and ensure there is enough feed for the period thay will be unable to find forage
Compared to last year are there many more bees, is the brood nest larger by number of frames. Did thay run short of feed last year
These type questions to yourself indicate weather you need to increase the amount of feed stores and by default space


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Dont have partially filled boxes above the cluster. Extra space above the cluster is heat loss area without food in it. No problem though to put a half empty box or even a box of empty frames below the brood box. Many people do this as a deliberate part of their wintering setup. If the bees in the brood box are not clustered yet they may even move up some stores from the partially filled box below. The cluster may even extend somewhat down into the lower box.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

In your location the typical winter configuration is a deep and a medium or a deep and a shallow or three eight frame mediums. I would adjust that based on the cluster size.


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