Look at the calendar and you will see you have a window on the 19th and 20th to do an oxalic acid dribble. It's very easy and inexpensive to do and it will dramatically increase the chances of your hive making it through the winter.
It's a big learning curve. Your bees will be fine, and you'll have a well mated queen. Don't open them for another 8 days. The swarm cells are in the fragile state, and you may damage them. When you do open them, you'll see empty swarm cells.
If the frames are really wonky, they should be changed out or the frames next to them will also be affected. You will lose some brood, pollen, etc., so the sooner you do it the better. Inspect hives at least once a week when you are starting out. You can rewax the wonky comb frames after...
Thymol works good. There's several products out there like Apiguard and ApiLifVar. I use Randy Oliver's extended release treatment if a hive gets a really high mite count. It works great, but sometimes it can be a little rough on brood and you have to remove supers or your honey will taste...
While beekeeping is local, unfortunately varroa mites are not. Varroa are the number one killer of bees. Learn as much as you can on the control and life cycle of varroa mites. At the end of July you want a mite wash of 3 mites or less per 300 bees.
I would stick with the 8 frames. Push them together, centered in the box. I always get heavy waxed foundation or add extra wax to it. It stops the cross combing.
Thats okay, you can always use mason jar feeders over the inner cover hole. I think they are easier to use and swap out and you...
I have an overwintered nuc that had a queen with tattered wings, could have been from fighting after she was mated. Rare, but it can happen. She was a great laying queen but would never be able to swarm. Sometimes a colony will try and swarm with a non flying queen and end up as a clump of...
All my years of keeping bees this is the first time I ever had a laying two queen colony in the spring. Or at least I've never noticed one before, it's usually in the fall and one is gone by spring. They both looked great, so I split them. Maybe one is a dud, but it certainly didn't look that...