sounds like the year a lot of us had, with a hot dry summer all my hive have eat all that I left them in the spring, I have started feeding my hives because it has been so dry I am not expecting must of a fall flow if any so I plan on feeding them heavy for the next couple month's, sounds like yours are ok, you did good by making the hives smaller, it is typical to cut hives down in the fall, just feed them heavy syrup for awhile and inspect them every week or so and see how they are storing the feed, remember feed 2-1 syrup in the fall, they should do fine....