Bursting at the seams

[New Bee 2]

I have 2 colonies that are currently bursting at the seams with bees. I want to get them ready for Winter but I don't think they will happily all fit in the brood box at the moment. How do I proceed? Do I just take the supers off and start my varoa treatment (apilife var) or wait for the number of bees to drop first.
Also, they do not have much room in the brood box for food (like the other threads!). If the brood box is full of brood then what is the right approach - take out the excluder and let them have the run of the super too hoping that they will store food in this (there's only 1 frame of food in there at the moment). What are the disadvantages of the brood and a half method. Can Apilife Var be used in this setup?

 

[Mike a]

Over the next few weeks you will see the colony size will start to drop in size. I intend to leave my colonies on brood and half over winter to ensure they have plenty of stores and I've already removed the QE.

If the Ivy flow is strong this year (I suspect it will be a heavy flow if the weather is right) I will swap out most of the full super frames and put in drawn combs so they can fill them up with the Ivy and then swap those frames out again before they set like concrete.