Mike,
This is why I like a 4 foot hive. I don’t know much about your season out there but if you have a good flow going and it will last for awhile you could do splits. I know people that are splitting right now in my area so you should be safe. If you are a feeder, splitting is less a problem. Try to find someone out that way to help you. Do you have hives for splitting? If not you could build a 4 foot hive. If I were splitting and had bees to do it I would split during early swarm season or May in my area. My personal season for fooling with bees is about over; I have 2 baited colonies to transfer into hives within the next few days and that’s it for me. The only thing for me now is honey. So with that said, here is what I would do. I would look in to see what was going on with those last few bars. If I felt they were in danger of filling the box, I would look for some capped honey to remove to make room. You could pull honey bars and save them to put back if they need it or keep them for Mike. I would stick with what I posted previously for Adam; I would rather have one strong colony going into winter that two that I might have to feed. Then next spring I would do my splitting. To both of you I must say; I don’t feed. You guys might feed and that changes the way folks manage their bees.