One of my hives never fully built out this spring; it's currently at just 1 brood box. The hive went queenless, so the bees weren't really focused on building out the hive. Most of the capped brood hatched out, so the combs that were in the hive ended up mostly empty. I ordered a new queen, and she was successfully introduced to the hive. I was feeding the hive the whole time the hive was queenless. In the time from when I discovered the hive was queenless to the time I removed the queen cage from the requeened hive, the bees had filled up most of the empty brood comb with honey, sugar syrup, and pollen; I think that feeding contributed to this. Thus, the new queen had only 1 frame of comb with space to lay eggs on. I added a frame of capped brood to the hive after I had requeened the hive to strengthen it. I thought that would give the queen more space to lay eggs after the capped brood hatched out, but I think that the bees may have filled that comb up too. There was only 1 frame with a little capped brood and 1 frame with eggs last time I checked – which was yesterday. The brood box is almost full at the moment; the bees started building more comb recently, plus 2 frames that had capped brood were added from another hive (I added a frame of capped brood during the time the hive was queenless). I stopped feeding the hive not that long ago; I was told by another beekeeper that if I stopped feeding, they would use up some of the honey, and that would free up some space for the bees. There's currently a nectar flow going where I live. What should I do to get the hive to build out enough to survive the winter, and how should I deal with the filled-up-comb problem? Should I add another brood box to give them space to build more comb? Should I feed?
Update: I added another brood box and started feeding again on June 30, 2021.