suggestions if I should split or what?

[brooklynbees]

I have sooo many questions. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I have one hive here. It was re-queened last year. It went into the winter with plenty of honey stores (2 deeps and a shallow) and I gave it pollen substitute in mid-March.

About four weeks ago I pulled the hive apart to check as it seemed the bees were in the top box. The bottom box just had honey; the middle and top boxes had brood and honey. So I pulled the bottom box, took the honey and replaced it on top with empty comb frames and some undrawn foundation.

Last week I took the mouse guard off since it was causing a backup at the entrance there were so many bees coming in and out.

Today, I opened the hive up to see how everything is going. The top box has larvae, capped brood, pollen, nectar etc. Looked good, but there was plenty of room for expansion.

The middle box also had capped brood, some larvae, pollen and capped honey. There were tons of bees all over and the outer frames were still empty.

BUT, the middle box frames also had queen cells and seemed to be "glued" to the bottom box frames with lots of comb that looked like drone cells. One of the queen cells got pulled apart when I was manipulating the frames and it had larva in it. I examined the larvae and didn't see any mites, which made me happy.

I didn't' check the bottom box; I just closed the hive up and came over here to ask questions.

Should I order another queen and split the hive to avoid a swarm? Should I be doing something else? Should I be more aggressive in cleaning up the frames when I take the boxes apart?

Thanks for the advice.

[brooklynbees]

Well, a correction to my post above.  I do have mites. I just rechecked the stuff I pulled out. They weren't on the larvae, but they are in the combs. So I stand corrected.