Spring in Ballarat — insulation off, first supers on, and how I'm reading swarm pressure in October

Southern hemisphere check-in for the northern folks battening down. We're in full spring here in central Victoria — cold mornings still, but the colonies have exploded over the last fortnight and the canola is going. What I've done in the last two weekends: pulled the winter top insulation off the strong ones, reversed nothing (I stopped doing that years ago, they sort themselves out), and put a super on anything covering eight or more frames of bees. Two hives already had play cups with a bit of jelly in them, which is my cue to start seven-day checks rather than my lazy fortnightly ones. The mistake I made in my first couple of seasons was treating supering as the swarm control. It isn't. Space helps, but once they've decided, only a proper manipulation or a split changes the outcome. Also doing my spring mite wash this week. Numbers were very low after the broodless treatment in July and I want to know what they look like now brood is going full tilt, because the population curve only goes one way from here.