What a week for a newbie

[CChampion]

I've had my strongest hive from last year swarm 3 times, caught all 3 but my mistakes caused it to be that bad, I felt I got another deep brood box on it in plenty time but evidently not. Caught another swarm at my friends camp house, but today I checked my package bees that were installed a month ago. 2 hives, 1st hive queen is laying but the workers aren't pulling comb fast enough even with me having gallon feeders inside and pollen patties and as comb is being pulled the bees are packing them with pollen. Should I worry about bounding up the queen? Next the other hive I didn't see the queen but I know she is there, young larva there but out of the 10 frames of foundation the bees have only pulled 3 and I have 4 supercedure cells capped!!!! What if any advice can y'all offer me on these 2 packages. I've got another coming on Monday and I felt they would build up faster than what they are but the weather has been wet here a lot. Is it common to have a queen get axed this early? Thanks for all the help you give. Also swarm 3 today probably has a virgin queen should I add that to the package that has supercedure cells and cut them out or let it just be.

Clark

[Tom B]

Sorry to say but package queens are sometimes duds, no fault of the supplier just random nature. I had this same thing happen last year, two packages in side-by-side hives, one good strong queen and one slow laying queen. Colony superceded this slow queen immediately and the hive started to produce. Both colonies survived a brutal WI winter, so I guess the bees knew what they were doing.

[CChampion]

I don't fault the supplier, the bees arrived in great shape and queens were released in 3-4 days when I checked. Other than adding 1:1 in the top I haven't fooled with their brood chamber. These are my 1st packages and don't plan to get a honey harvest from these hives this year but I'm just not familiar with how long it takes a package to get in gear.