I like to think of a queen's useful life as measured in waves, each time she builds her nest is a wave ie. a queen mated in july 21 will have built up her nest once for winter and will be in her second wave now. Each season colonies typically go through three waves, spring, summer and autumn.
My queen's (despite 2 decades of trying to select the least swarmy mothers) usually make swarm preparations in their 4th or 5th wave, or if they don't coincide with spring or summer, the next spring wave of nest building.