Winter nucs - stack or put on strong hives?

[DBoire]

hey,
Winter nucs - stack or put on strong hives?  That's the question.  I'm in southern NY,  the winters are mild, from my upbringing in northern NY.  We rarily get below 0 deg. F.  history of hives so far, the first year, wraped hives, second year no wrap - all hves survived.  So,.. up state we winter nucs over strong hives, down here I'm thinking I can winter them on each other.  reason being with limited hive with witch to winter them on I will need to manage location which is a major pain.
thoughts?

[Brian D. Bray]

Stacking hives next to each other or on top of each other allows them to share warmth which helps conserve stores.  If you're going to winter more than one nuc I would cut a board to fit vertically between the frames on a 10 frame hive and winter 2 nucs in one box.

[Michael Bush]

I keep trying to overwinter nucs.  If I ever get the hang of it I'll let you know.  Meanwhile, here are the mistakes I've made.  Putting them on top of a strong hive with any kind of screen (I've done from a full double screen board to a double screen on an inner coverhole).  Condensation was the problem.  I've stacked them up but the nucs on the bottom don't get any heat.  I've covered them all with a heater set at 50 F and this worked ok, but I had trouble with the feeder jars leaking and it wasn't a good test, since it was a mild winter.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnucs.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/ApartmentNucsWintering.JPG
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/ApartmentNucsWrappedInFoam.jpg