1st year worries - Honeybound swarms?

[KeyLargoBees]

Package installed on May 30th and these Italian girls have gone crazy...8 of 10 deep plastic foundation frames drawn and everything...and I mean everything except the two outside frames is filled with capped brood, Larvae in all stages, thousands of eggs, and pollen/honey. Hive inspection Saturday 6/13 revealed this ....as well as some concerning queen cup building...one in the center of the frame and 2 on bottom edges on the two center frames of the box...the queen is a machine and I saw her moving and grooving and doing her thing. I was a little pressed for time on Saturday as a rain storm blew up unexpectedly while I had the hive open so I couldn't get photos or inspect the queen cells too closely. Decided to open Hive at my first chance to check and see if anything had changed and take a close look at those queen cups.

I was able to take another peek today and moved undrawn frame 1 and 10 into slot 3 and 7 and moved the honey and pollen stores out.....hoping this gives the queen more room till the first batch of brood hatches on or around the 23/24 of the month. I also added a medium super to maybe allow the girls to pull some comb if they finish with those last two frames before brood emerges.....but I am concerned with those queen cups as they appeared to have eggs in the bottom....

Suggestions? I really don't want to think about swarms before the first batch of brood even hatches LOL and I cant imagine these are supercedure cells with the queen being the laying machine that she is....did I let them get too crowded maybe? And will my efforts so far get them to stop thinking bad swarmy thoughts?

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

Jeff

[cao]

From what you said, I think you did the right thing adding the super.  I don't think they will swarm.  As far as the queen cups, a lot of people are saying that the packages tend to supercede the queen in the first year.  This might just be the case.  If you have a good flow going I would say that you might need to add another super in a week or two.  I know my bees can draw out and fill a med super within two weeks if there's a good flow.  Hopefully some more experienced beeks will answer also.

[Michael Bush]

Tear one of the cups back so you can see if there is or is not an egg in them.  If not, then they mean nothing.  If it has an egg in it I would keep an eye on it.  I don't consider it serious until there is a larvae in it being fed...

[BeeMaster2]

What Micheal said.
It sounds like you are using the correct term, queen cup. Bees build them all the time and they are left empty. When they want to swarm, the queen will lay an egg in them the bees will tent to them and they become queen cells.
As long as you do not see larvae in them you are good.
Jim

[KeyLargoBees]

All three are capped.....the queen started out really well but the brood pattern is getting spotty and she is sort of wandering aimlessly. The bees know when things are going south it seems.

She is from Georgia and with all the rain this spring I don't think she was well mated and it looks like they are going to supersede....I am learning things every day and every day brings more questions than answers but it is so fascinating I cant believe I waited this long to get into this ;-)

[Michael Bush]

If the brood nest is just spotty that is one thing.  If the cells are getting filled with nectar/syrup, and you are still feeding, then I would assume they are swarming.  Especially if the ages of those cells vary.