Winter loss and some comments

[rdy-b]

sometimes I think I do better keeping my yards closer and larger-than getting to scattered-everybody wants bees on there locations -and it is hard to tell them no but if you have to replace them because they died you are forever playing catch up-good locations that support bees with minimum work are worth there weight in gold and those are the locations you should cultivate your efforts-myself i usually know what the count will be in october-and build my strategy from there-you have got a handel on it and have your hands full -happy keeping  ;) 8-)  RDY-B

[Brian D. Bray]

I have actually tried double decker nucs, the problem seems to be too large of a cluster. I thought with a 4 frame deep and a 4 frame medium packed full of honey it would be enough stores, but they starved as well.

If you reduce the hive down to a double decker nuc then you will have too big of a cluster for the size of the space and available stores.  To successfully overwinter bees in a nuc they need to be kept that small and then fed to the point of being honey bound and drawing burr comb. 
If Collapsing a Hive is a must, especially after it has already laid the eggs for the late hatch, over winter, bees leaves the cluster to big all winter.  The hive must be reduced to a double decker nuc prior to the development of the late hatch bees.  Collapsing before the late hatch bees are laid as eggs dictates to the hive how much brood is necessary.  They produce the population dependent on the size of the hive boxes.