People dealing with such slow flows and climate, have to try different things. What i understood observing my hives is that every single beehive is different and has different needs, due to Queen ability and resources. The space and frames really needed is quite different and giving one more box or not or adding an excluder ( even after 1st brood box that i also did this year to try) may be foolish for one area and necessary to other.
The bigger step for me to do, is to convince my clients that the best honey is not that has the best color in their opinion. They have to wait until bees are ready to give their plus honey leaving back also enough. This was a reason of using excluder but no more. Colonies getting smaller and small colonies maintaining for so many months of light flows can not give something at the end.
Today that i took a look at the 9 frame boxes was full of brood and also heavy of extra honey above brood. Some of these frames are really heavy.
So, Finski, this month is the month of honey for you. Wish you best harvest possible.