newbee questions

[RC]

I got 2 nucs last Wednesday and had to put them into my hives rather quickly to avoid an oncoming thunderstorm. These nucs were absolutely packed with bees. In fact, while transferring the frames I thought I saw a few queen cells hanging on the bottom of some of the frames.
I opened them up yesterday (Sunday) afternoon and sure enough both hives have queen cells on some of them frames. There's also a lot of honey, both capped and uncapped, and pollen. The 5 frames that came with the nucs are fully drawn but and they're working on drawing a couple of the new frames that I had in my hives.
It appears that they've decided to swarm while they were still in the nucs. What should I do, if anything?
These girls are bring in loads of pollen and I'm afraid that they will load up the brood nest since the other frames aren't drawn yet.
I fed them a couple of quarts of 1:1 with HBH and they were taking a quart in 24 hrs. Should I continue to feed while they're drawing or stop at this point? I don't want to fill the brood nest with syrup.
I bought these bees from Dadant in High Springs and so far have been very pleased.I don't think they could be anymore docile. Even with my ham fisted fumbling around, I haven't took a sting yet. One got in my veil yesterday and crawled around on my cheek and ear until I could get her out, but she had mercy on me.
I don't have a mentor close by, so I have to use you folks. Thanks for your patience.

[forrestcav]

I would consider a second brood box and stop feeding. You should have a good flow on right now. If the pressure is off then they may loose the swarming desire, but some more educated than I may know.

[Joe D]

I wintered a hive in 1 deep, checking this spring it had a swarm cell.  I added another deep brood box and a super, didn't do anything to swarm cell, and they still swarmed.  It is up to you and the bees what they will do.  Others with more experience may have better advice.  Good luck

Joe

[BeeMaster2]

Removing a swarm cell doesn't mean they won't swarm especially if you did it the day they planned on swarming. I would add a drawn frame in the middle of the brood or at least a foundation to give the Q space to lay eggs.
Jim

[Kathyp]

move the undrawn frames to the brood nest and the full frames to the outside. 

if you have extra nuc boxes, your best bet might be to split those hives.  take the queen, some brood and some workers and put them in a nuc.  leave the swarm cells and the rest of the bees in the old hive with some brood.  5 fames each is not a lot to work with, but swarmed hives will be even less.  even if you don't have nucs, you can use 10 frame boxes.  it should be warm enough that they'd be ok.

don't remove the queen cells.  if you do and they swarm, you will end up with no queen.
 

[RC]

Thanks for the replies. I actually thought about splitting yesterday, but I couldn't find the queen in either hive. There's plenty of eggs so i know they're there. There's just so many bees in there and I'm a complete novice.

[beyondthesidewalks]

Are they complete queen cells?  Are they sealed?  If not, can you see eggs or worms in them?  Just because they have drawn some queen cells doesn't mean they've started using them yet.  It's not unusual for bees to start queen cells and not use them.  Cutting out queen cells is the best way to end up queenless.

Moving empty frames into the brood nest will help stop the urge, as mentioned.  If there aren't eggs or worms in the queen cells I wouldn't stop feeding.  As long as they keep taking syrup they probably don't have a good source of nectar.  Give them plenty of frames to draw out and they should be fine.  If you have to add another hive body, move a drawn frame into the hive body to encourage drawing in that new hive body.  If they have completed queen cells the best solution as previously mentioned is to split, swarming for them.

Good luck with it.