estimating hive strength in spring

[pistolpete]

Finally a warm day to go and check on my hives (10 C. , but still have a foot of snow on the ground though).   Now I just need some help interpreting the findings.   My back yard hive had about a thousand bees between the insulated cover and the inner cover.  Presumably they pack that space full for insulation?  When I opened up the inner cover all I could see was bees.  The only spaces that were not filled were between the outer frames and the hive box.    Does this mean that the cluster is sandwiched up against the top cover and perhaps only a couple of inches deep, or is there just a tonne of bees in this hive?     Everything is so propolised together that I did not try a heft test on the hive, but I plan on starting some feeding soon.  They went into the winter with with 100lbs of honey, but that was almost five months ago. 

[apisbees]

Pete I tend to lift the cover and see how far the bees are up in the supers and if they are in the top box against the cover I will put the cover back down and break between the 2 brood boxes and tilt it up to see if the bees extend down into the bottom super.
For me if the bees do not extend down into the bottom super i will remove it clean the bottom board and place the top super down on the bottom board and will leave it as a single until there is population and brood to require the extra space. The population will continue to dwindle over the next 3 weeks and it will be 5 weeks before the hive population is on a steady up swing.
I was thru a hive to day and the bees had patches of brood on 2 frames I would suspect that you would have the same. The cluster is usually egg shaped in standard 10 frame lang's.

[blueblood]

Good answer Apis, I almost removed the bottom deeps yesterday when going through my hives.  My bees were all still, mostly in the top.  I will keep that in mind for next year.

[pistolpete]

That sounds like a good plan.  All 3 of my hives have made it through the winter, but I have not actually cracked the lid on the two others.  Judging from front entrance activity the other two are a bit weaker.