Hi Peter,

Thanks for reaching out with these beekeeping questions. I responded to your Ask Extension and email questions below in italics.

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My recently installed nuc now has several uncapped queen cells (with royal jelly) centrally located on combs. I gave them a second brood chamber 8 days ago, and put three empty brood combs above, one of which was from the lower chamber. One comb has probably 5-6 day old larvae. Would I be right that they don't perceive that they have space to expand since there is a lack of drawn out comb? 

It sounds like you had at least 3 frames of empty, drawn comb that you placed in the 2nd box above the broodnest. It also sounds like one of those frames now has young brood in it. If the other two frames are also full of brood/food and the colony doesn't have empty comb, then they may be getting crowded. This time of year, bees should easily draw new comb to expand the broodnest and store incoming nectar and pollen.

I have not seen the queen, however I might easily miss seeing her. The youngest stage of brood I see anywhere in the hive are the 5-6 day old larvae. I assume the queen is present and the pattern of existing brood is very good.

I don't think we can assume the queen is present. 

One possibility is that the colony lost its queen and is raising a new one. Given that you did not see any eggs or younger larvae, I suspect the colony may be queenless.

Another possibility is the colony already issued a swarm. The bees don't swarm until there are sealed queen cells, but it's easy to miss (not see) sealed queen cells in a hive full of bees. Normally when a colony is preparing to swarm and has open queen cells, I still see younger larvae and some eggs. It also seems less likely that a small nuc issued a swarm, but it's possible.

Some people have difficulty seeing young larvae and eggs in the combs. If you're not experienced seeing eggs and young larvae, sometimes good lighting (a flashlight) and magnifying devices can help.

Feel free to share additional information after you inspect the colony. My top suspicion given your description is emergency queen rearing.

Is the best solution to destroy the queen cells? Is another part of the solution to put capped brood from below in the upper brood chamber so that when they emerge, there is space for new egg laying? Additional suggestions welcome.

I don't recommend destroying the queen cells unless you find the queen in the hive.

If you find the queen and it appears the colony is preparing to swarm, you can remove all the queen cells. Like I mentioned above, it's easy to miss a queen cell, so you'll normally need to shake bees off all the frames to see queen cells. You'll need to check weekly for queen cells until the bees stop trying to swarm.

If you found the queen and your colony were larger, you could consider splitting the colony by moving the queen to a new hive with brood, open comb, and food frames and leave behind 1-2 nice looking queen cells. Given that your colony is small (started as a nuc), however, I'd worry that it's not large enough in population to split.

Good morning. I thought you might end up being the one to answer this question, and I had something more to add. In many or even most of the available current (brood) space, the bees are beginning to fill cells with nectar and this would seemingly compound the problem. Would part of the solution be to put on a super (over a queen excluder)? To what degree will bees move the nectar to the upper space and out of the brood frames?

I welcome your thoughts on this too, in addition to the original question.

Our second hive may be in a similar state, also via a new nuc this year, and I'll be inspecting it today or over the weekend.

Bees often store nectar in the broodnest when there isn't sufficient empty drawn comb above and to the sides of the broodnest. Bees also store nectar in the broodnest when they are queenless. Bees can't/don't move capped honey, but they can move nectar out of the broodnest area if they receive more space (drawn, empty comb) or if they have a new queen.

Does your honey super have some drawn comb in it or does it have new frames of foundation? If your honey super has drawn comb, you can add it above a queen excluder. If your honey super is all new frames with foundation, then sometimes bees are reluctant to go through an excluder to start drawing comb. You can add a super with foundation without a queen excluder, and then you can later shake bees down (to make sure the queen isn't in the super) and add a queen excluder after they've started drawing comb in the super.

Happy beekeeping!