[Shelleyanne]

I have built a long hive that fits 21 full depth frames and to reduce weight of lifting thought I would place shallow (or half depth) supers and frames on for the honey supers. I was wondering, if I left 2 shallow supers side by side of honey for the bees to overwinter on, what are the chances of the queen laying in these?

 

[drlonzo]

The possibility is quite high. I would actually worry more about the idea of putting those shallows side by side on a long hive. Once the girsl get up in one of them during winter and run out of honey, if it's cold they won't be able to go back down and up again to another super. If I were going to give them that much honey to over winter on, i'd put it right above the honey they have in the lower long hive and stack it up.

 

[JohnBeeMan]

If they overwinter in the super she will start brood in the supers. I have had the queen lay drone brood in lower part of honey supers even when she had two deeps for brood nest.

 

[Shelleyanne]

So I'd probably be better to place a full depth super above it then I guess. I was thinking a half depth would be better because it would be more stable in our winds.
The temperature here in winter gets down to 2 degrees sometimes 0 degrees but during the day it goes up again most days to 10 degress, would they not come down at that temperature?