I made the first inspection of the year and did not expect to find such an excessive number of bees in my two deep boxes in a hive I started from a 3lb package last year. Even the dry frames were covered as thickly as the brood and honey frames. I believe they are mostly nurse bees because the traffic of foragers is slightly less than it was at its peak last year. The large number of bees is tempting me to do a 3 way split and there is one supercedure cell and one swarm cell. I noticed that the brood pattern was not tight and I wonder whether the queen stopped laying. However, I have read on this site, and elsewhere, that splits need to be done before the queen cells are capped. I always thought it was the other way around and now need to know why I need to wait untill queen cells are capped before a split is made. Is there a simple explanation? Thank you.