Mead super reaction to yeast?

I just made this recipe five days ago.
*

4qts Apple Cider*
ICV D-47 Lalvin Wine Yeast
4Lbs Orange Blossom Honey
2 Cinnamon sticks

The fermentation seemed to not be happening though. I mean no airlock activity at all. So, I added a second pack of yeast, after rehydration. As soon as the yeast hit the mead, I got a huge upward rush of foam(like a science project volcano). Not sure if it matters but I didn't have yeast nutrient in the mixture. A lot of sites said that by boiling yeast to kill it and adding to the mixture could serve as a nutrient, so I did. I'm not too sure what's going on, is there a lack of oxygen or am I misleading myself by expecting a beer like fermentation?

Sounds to me like you might have a leaky bung. ( based on no airlock activity and foamcano )
Mead defiantly doesn't ferment as violently as beer. ( at least in my experience ) You wont get anywhere near the foaming you would with beer. But it does sound like its fermenting.

I hope that's the case. I just changed it out today. Also, I'm new to mead what's the typical fermentation timeline?

Mine typicaly go
1 month primary
1 month secondary
Bottle

Test your gravity or time your bubbler to know when to rack.

Yes, the foam eruption tells you that fermentation was occurring because as soon as you gave it new particulates, the dissolved CO2/carbonic acid nucleated out as foam (which in turn tells you that primary ferment is easiest in airlocked buckets - then rack to carboy/jug once primary is complete).

Equally, there's no real timeline. My technique is to ferment in bucket, once finished and I've confirmed it stable, I take a taste to judge the sweetness level and measure. I then bring it up to my desired level of sweetness, leave it for a few.days to drop the gross lees, then rack to carboy/gallon jug.

There it stays until it's either dropped 3/4's inch of sediment, or dropped clear.

I don't bottle anything until it's ready, certainly not anything still containing sediment. I'll happily filter it into bottles.

Yes, we are mead making amateurs, but to bottle cloudy is amateurish in the extreme. No-one likes a cloudy glassful and leaving it.to clear in a bottle removes the idea of further racking and leaves the possibility of autolysis (off flavours from dead/rotting yeast cells)........