Not sure if hived has swarmed, or about to?

[derrick1p1]

I checked my hives yesterday.  All have queens now.  (this is an awesome accomplishment as I've had queen issues all spring). 

One of my hives had a new queen as of last week (they reared their own queen).  She was laying very well.  Checked 5 days later (yesterday) eggs are present, but so are swarm cells.  Not completely capped.  I couldn't find the queen despite my diligence. 
Is it possible they swarmed before the cells were capped?
Could these be emergency cells although they are at the bottom?

This is a recent split, numbers aren't super and plenty of space, so confused as to why they would swarm now.  Strange.

[bassman1977]

Is it possible they swarmed before the cells were capped?

Might be possible that they had swarm cells already capped, and then took off, new queen emerged, started laying and now they are preparing another swarm.  I would also imagine it is possible that they took off before they were capped.  I have a hive right now that swarmed but there is no queen present yet.  There are swarm cells that should be emerging any day now. 

Could these be emergency cells although they are at the bottom?

Could be if there were only eggs available near the bottom of the frame.  Most likely swarm cells though.

This is a recent split, numbers aren't super and plenty of space, so confused as to why they would swarm now.

Interesting.  I've been hearing a lot of reports of swarms.  Mine finally swarmed recently.  I wish I saw it happen so I could capture them, but I didn't.

[Brian D. Bray]

I checked my hives yesterday.  All have queens now.  (this is an awesome accomplishment as I've had queen issues all spring). 

Good for you.

One of my hives had a new queen as of last week (they reared their own queen).  She was laying very well.  Checked 5 days later (yesterday) eggs are present, but so are swarm cells.  Not completely capped.  I couldn't find the queen despite my diligence. 
Is it possible they swarmed before the cells were capped?

It is not uncommon to have the old queen swarm before the cells are capped, not as likely as after they are capped, but it still happens more than people realize, they remove the uncapped queen cells and then wonder why the hive is suddenly queenless.  Never, ever, remove queen cells--there's lots of options on what to do with them--like splits that can be recompbined later if necessary.

Are you sure there was larvae in the cells, a lot of newbees mistake queen cups for queen cells.  Queen cups are common and not always used, some hives have them on hand from early spring until late fall and if the hive is managed properly the cups are never used and the hive doesn't swarm.  Queen cups do not always mean queen cells or swarming.

Could these be emergency cells although they are at the bottom?

Emergency queen cells will and can be found anyplace top, bottom, ends, mid-frame, etc.  Sometimes there will be a dozen and sometimes only 1--it depends on how may eggs that hatch into larvae (day 4) the bees find suitable as queen candidates.

This is a recent split, numbers aren't super and plenty of space, so confused as to why they would swarm now.  Strange.

One mistake many people make in making splits is they forget that in nature the old queen leaves the hive.  If splits are made and the old queen is left in the original hive, in the original location, you can and should expect swarms.  The old queen must be removed from the parent hive and placed in a new hive at a new location, even if it's within the same bee yard.