Entrance reducers out

Maidi and I went into the hives a couple of days ago.  We also removed the entrance reducers from all the hives.  It looks like the honey flow is starting.  There is lots of pollen being brought into the hives and the plum trees are in bloom.  The bees should be in the midst of the spring build up when they increase the colony size rapidly to 20,000 or so.
#1- The colony looks strong with a lot of bees in the super.  The super felt kind of heavy ,probably over five pounds which means they are also storing nectar which will be our fall honey harvest.  We saw the queen, fat and golden, in the top brood box.  There was capped brood in the top box; we did not check the bottom box.
#2- There were not many bees in the super and there was no nectar.  There was a good amount of brood in the top box.  We did not look at the bottom box.  #2 appears to be the weakest of the three hives but does not look unhealthy.  I will certainly check it again in a week or two.
#3- Some nectar in the super.  Lots of brood and eggs in both brood boxes.  We did not see the queen but know she's doing her job.  #3 is moderately strong.
Even though I have not been reporting, I have been doing winter chores.  I let the bees clean all the comb from Olea's, then froze and stored what I could.  I cleaned the observation window which was smeared on the inside from all those little bee feet.  I bought more deep frames and foundation so that I could make more splits. 
And I have been mulling over the best way to repopulate Olea's hive.  One choice is to put all the bees from the nuc in the hive.  This would be like a package.  However, I would not want to just discard the brood from the nuc and would then want to put it into one of the other hives.  This would involve a bit of frame juggling.  Also, the number of bees in the nuc might not be enough and I would have to add some from one of the other hives.  Another, simpler way is to do what I did before, namely make a shook swarm from one of the other hives.  That hive would then have to make a new queen.  I would also still have the nuc and when I make splits will then have 2-3 nucs.  Maybe I could sell one.