2 deep brood boxes are almost full? Have a deep super on.! Only 1 hive. 1st yr

Hi, Leslie—thank you for a comprehensive description of what you have so I may offer advice with those things in mind. MANY newbees fail to describe their colony situation, so a lot of time is spent trying to dig it out with notes back and forth!!
The big difference between us is that we are still in the throes of Winter (for Los Angeles, that means we have finally been getting some winter chill of mid-40 degrees F. Winters are increasingly showing heat spikes and little to no winter chill, even at night) I think you are in Summer now. And the dependent factor is forage for you. If you are on a flow, the honey storage could find the bees backfilling the queen’s laying space (becoming honey bound) unless you open up the brood nest by moving some brood frames out to a nuc or up into another level. If you are looking at swarm prevention, the initiation could be not far off with 2 deeps of brood drawn out to the degree you write. I do not use excluders, preferring to practice Michael Bush’s method of unlimited brood nest. Bees will naturally store the excess honey in the upper boxes anyway, and the queen will build a strong, resilient brood chamber if she is not confined. Here is a link—http://www.bushfarms.com/beesulbn.htm
Are you using foundation? I do not use it, so I can’t address how fast they will draw wax for you. You say “The honey super drawn out ” so I am not sure what you are meaning.
I am assuming you are using the term “checkerboard” in the proper manner attributed to Walt Wright, who coined the term for describing nectar/honey frame management to avert swarming. A full head of honey above the brood nest is a signal to swarm, too. So he describes alternating filled nectar/honey frames with empty frames above the broodnest, and laying on another box where the five honey frames taken out are alternated above the lower honey box, or, H,E,H,E,H,E,H,E,H,E for the lower one and E,H,E,H,E,H,E,H,E,H for the top one. This gives the bees the impression they are not ready to swarm. One other question—where are the bees sourced? Package/breeder bees or feral survivor stock? I am not including any understanding of varroa counts or loads since I do not deal with that issue, my AHBs do it! But it is a factor when there is not genetic resistance.

Hi, writing back I am concerned about destruction of queen cell you found. I hope this was not a attempt by the colony to supercede a failing queen. Much of the time we humans can not know the bees requiring a new queen and what spurs them to start the process. You do not say if there was a egg or larva in the cell. Be aware, for swarming, many queen cells will be drawn and if they are already occupied, even cutting them out will not stop a colony from swarming—they are on the trajectory already. ONE queen cell is often the attempt to replace a queen. Michael Bush has some good writing on this subject, here http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfallacies.htm