possible queen sighting!

[beerookie]

Hello everyone,
Let me describe my situation. My hive coming out of winter was: (10 frame equip.) Solid BB deep & med.
I haven't been able to inspect due to weather & schedule. Yesterday was 70 & no wind, but cloudy, so I decided to get the hive on new SBB. My plan was to transfer to SBB in same order. When I broke it down, I noticed 2 things.
1) I have a lot more bees than I thought, YAHOO
2) The Med. was heavier than the deep.

So I went ahead & reversed. Was that the right thing to do.
The old BB was covered with solid mass of bees, so I set it in front of new set up so they could walk in. It worked.
There was still alot of activity at 7:00 PM so I suited back up to get the old BB. 2nd yr. Beek, still chicken!
I noticed bees using old BB for landing & walking into new. I almost hyper ventilated when one landed that looked like a queen. I've never seen a queen in person before, but her abdomine was about twice as long as others, looked like all pics i've seen. She walked right in like she new where she was going. A laying queen would not be flying, correct? Should i be expecting a swarm? Should I do a split?

Help! I'm exited & also a little worried! I did put on a new deep of Waxed Rite-Cell Foundation from Mannlake on 4/18 and have been feeding 1:1. They are drawing new comb. Should I do anything else, or just let the girls do their thing?

Your thoughts and opinions are greatly respected and appreciated!! Thanks a bunch!

Sherman

[no1cowboy]

Next time you open up your hive look at the brood frames, look for eggs and look to see what stages the brood is in, this will tell you a lot about whats going on inside your hive and if there is a good working queen.

[Ravenseye]

If they're ready to swarm you probably won't do much about it more than you've already done. I think an inspection is in order. Look for queen cells, open or closed. Your medium was heavier due to honey stores I'm guessing. Did you see the bottom of the frames in the deep when you reversed? If so, you would likely have noticed swarm cells if they were there.

[beerookie]

Thanks Ravenseye for sharing your knowledge. I didn't get to look at anything, rain was on the way. Also for next 7 days. Just can't get a break. But I will inspect first chance I get. Thanks again.

[chief]

If you did see the queen fly in then your hive has already swarmed and that was the new queen returning from her mating flight. New queens usually only take one mating flight so the chances of seeing this is very slim and you should feel privileged to be one of the very few to have seen this happen. I have seen this happen once myself but I knew it was happening and I got really really lucky. Do what Ravenseye says and check for swarm cells both open and closed. If you see open/hatched queen cells (they will look like a peanut that is open at one end and some will be torn up) then your hive probably swarmed and what you saw was your new queen returning. I have already received several swarm calls this year but I am not familiar with your weather so I cant say if its too early for them to have swarmed.

Reversing was probably ok to do if the bottom deep was mostly empty. This will give them room to expand upwards. If the bottom box was filled with brood and the top with honey then in may not have been the best manipulation but the bees will figure it out either way.

Since you are not vary familiar with what a queen looks like then I would suggest that sometimes a worker filled with nectar can have an abnormally large abdomen as well.