Marc  wrote:
"I am trying to resolve a problem.  I had hives swarm
due to congestion.  There was not adequate laying space
in the brood chambers, the brood chambers had too much
nectar and honey. ...
Advice will be greatly appreciated.  I created the mess by
not monitoring them as closely as I should have.  Now I need
to figure out how to provide more laying space without
extracting the deep frames."

First, you didn't create the mess. Bees swarm naturally, when left
alone. Second, the problem of congestion and not enough laying room
is actually solved -- the bees swarmed. (No more congestion, no more
egg laying for now). After a hive swarms, there aren't enough bees to
do much useful work. Normally,  one simply leaves them alone until
they build back up. The hatching brood will provide room for the new
queen when she begins to lay.

Foundation is best drawn out in supers above the brood nest.
Foundation should be used sparingly in the brood nest, only a few
frames at a time. To provide more room for the queen, empty black
combs are much better, as the bees will use these right away. If you
find yourself with a lot of honey in old combs and no way of
extracting it, try putting these frames *under* the brood in the
spring and the bees may clean it out.

Swarming is a mystery that no one has really solved. Some hives get
congested and don't swarm. Some years there is much more swarming
than others. A lot of it is environmental. Don't blame yourself.
However, it is much easier to manage bees if the frames are all the
same size. Even so, the goal of not extracting the honey out of the
brood nest is a good one, since this honey is more likely to be
tainted by fluvalinate and terramycin, than the fresh honey in the
supers.


--
Peter Borst
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http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/plb6/