A queen cup is a partially drawn queen cell. It becomes a queen cell when the queen lays in it and they start feeding it royal jelly. They often make cups and it never becomes a queen cell. Some refer to them as practice cups. You can safely squish them so you don't have to keep checking it to see if it's " charged" with an egg and royal jelly.
Swarm cells are usually found along the bottom of a frame and supercedure cells are usually found anywhere else higher on a frame, except when they are not. Location is a clue, not determinative.
Knocking down uncapped swarm cells will buy you time to take action. It will rarely stop the swarm instinct. If you see capped queen cells, your hive probably, but not always, has already swarmed. So if you see these, STOP and think of what to do. If you knock all of them down, you could be making your hive without the ability to make a queen. J

 

A queen cup is a partially drawn queen cell. It becomes a queen cell when the queen lays in it and they start feeding it royal jelly. They often make cups and it never becomes a queen cell. Some refer to them as practice cups. You can safely squish them so you don't have to keep checking it to see if it's " charged" with an egg and royal jelly.
Swarm cells are usually found along the bottom of a frame and supercedure cells are usually found anywhere else higher on a frame, except when they are not. Location is a clue, not determinative.
Knocking down uncapped swarm cells will buy you time to take action. It will rarely stop the swarm instinct. If you see capped queen cells, your hive probably, but not always, has already swarmed. So if you see these, STOP and think of what to do. If you knock all of them down, you could be making your hive without the ability to make a queen. J

Thank you FiveJ for the reply. On my last check this past Saturday I found a couple of Queen cups on the face of one of my deep frames. This hive has a double deep on it. The second box was put on when the bottom box had 7 of the 10 frames about full. Still has room though now after my manipulations this last Saturday. Second box, also a deep, is all new foundation. They've started to draw a couple of frames out up there and to try to help matters along I moved a couple of frames from the brood chamber up and moved the frames of foundation down in their spot. Now that I think about it, I probably should have closed the brood chamber up and moved the empty frames to the outside. Didn't see the Queen but wasn't really looking for her. Lots'a brood in different stages. I don't see too good and didn't see any eggs, I rarely do unless conditions are just about perfect, but did see milk brood, larva in the wet that looked just about ready to be capped, and two frames full of capped brood on both sides that when it hatches out there is gonna' be a lot of bees in there. Unless I rolled the queen with my bumbling around in there I really can't think of any reason they would get into a swarm mode but those queen cups were already there on Saturday. I didn't knock 'em down but tomorrow is bee day so I'll be in there looking around again and I may try to split if there's a capped Queen Cell. If there's more than one, well I don't know just what I'm gonna' do, LOL. Hopefully nothing will be in there and the Queen cups will be empty, I'll see Her Majesty this time, and things will be A-OK. No matter what though, I get the feeling that I'm gonna' end up learn something, good or bad.

Anyway, before I get too long winded, thank you again for the reply.

 

This might be a helpful place to start, Wally Shaw---There are Queen cells in my hive-what should I do.

 

Thank you very much Little Bear. I also found the book recommended in there "An Apiary Guide To Swarm Control" by the same author. Actually started reading the first book before I came back to reply to this thread. All I can say is I've got a long way to go!! Thank you again. Very much appreciated.

 

Some good info here as well.

https://denton.agrilife.org/files/2013/08/beekeeping-basics.pdf

 

Thank you for the link Tumbleweed. I can see what I'll be doing for the next few days, LOL.

 

You are on the right track. Keep on top of it. It is a learning experience. Look up OSBN method to deter swarming. It's in a sticky here. Sometimes putting foundation in the middle of a broodnest works. Just putting an empty frame works better and OSBN method puts frames on the side which is less risky and works if you stay on top of it. J

 

Did my check today. Queen cups were gone but now there were a great many drone cells on both sides of one frame and then scattered around the rest of the frames. Not a lot of stuff going on around here right now and could probably condense both boxes into just the bottom box. Will probably end up having to feed as we are in dearth here in my area. Not too far from here they are into the popcorn trees but far as I know there are none right around here. The nuc I bought and installed a couple of weeks ago looks good though. At least it's holding it's own. Will probably end up having to feed it also. Anyway, I'll get it figured out.