Follow what clayton huestis is saying - all ACTIVE season long.
Winter prep is not necessarily equalizing, If you are using USA or English National standard colonies and they are two 9-11/16ths inch deep brood boxes with a medium 6-5/8 honey box, You want the best colonies to get up to 130 lbs minimum to ensure making it over Winter.
I'm talking about using a scale and weighing them.
Take photos of each frame and decide how much total resources your apiary has. You then have to decide how many colonies it can make into 130 pounders for over-Wintering. 35 colonies is not too many to go ahead and weigh each frame if you felt up to it.
So some of this is combining and to some degree equalizing. I'm trying to go into Winter with my strongest colonies between 135 and 140 pounds. The weaker ones are split up and combined into the ones that are close - like say, 105 lbs get a lot of help, 120 pounders get a couple frames, 125 pounders get 1 frame, etc. 75 pounders are likely donor colonies (unless that is your heaviest - in which case newspaper combine them up to 130+).
I judge by the early Winter rainfall how far to split them early in the Spring, but late rains can cause a bloom that makes a lot of extra work adjusting a bad guess - re-splitting, then lots of ongoing equalizing.
On poor rainfall years, I'm just trying to keep them alive. Feed, equalize feed equalize, yada yada yada.
Equalizing is most critical right after honey harvest when the robbing screens go on. Place the brood at the entrance and the honey way up top and in the back so that the robbers have to go through the whole colony to steal the honey. Buy or make the best robbing screens you can get, and attach them correctly. Be sure the hive boxes do not have any other holes, or add another robbing screen if they do.
Later in the Fall, try to re-equalize after the robbing has stopped, but do the 130 pound minimum thing described above.
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BY THE WAY - Paso Robles, CA should hit 113 degrees today, so put out several watering pans NOW. They will be fanning the five for survival this afternoon. Pull any corks out of the holes , or go drill extra holes NOW.
Mojave, CA hit 120 degrees F yesterday, plenty hot enough to melt wax combs and destroy a hive. Put shades up , put water out, or take them to the coast.
Best of luck, uh, wait - that should be MAKE YOUR LUCK!!!