How do MaxSpareServers work in Apache?
Solution 1:
If somehow there are less spare server processes than MinSpareServers, Apache will attempt to create spare server processes until they are at least MinSpareServers.
If you have load on your server, Apache will create more server processes up to MaxClients. As long as they are in use they will not be killed, but if the load drops, Apache will start killing the processes until there are at most MaxSpareServer processes left.