Aggressive Bees in an Old Hive

I was given an old hive that hadn't been managed for 15-20 years. It was sitting on two deep bodies. I didn't even try to manipulate the frames because they were stuck together. What I did was to get the two bodies apart and give each their own bottom and an empty mediem super with foundation ontop. One hive had the queen and the other made they're own and built up. I hope to get the old body And frames out this spring and continue to grow the collonies.

The easiest way to handle this might be to under super these colonies and the queens will move down onto the new equipment. At that point you can put a queen excluder over her and let any brood in the fused equipment emerge. Then since this fused box will probably be full of honey, I would put it on a bottom board with a closed entrance. put an excluder over it and stack the brood boxes over it and establish an upper entrance. The bees will them move the stores out of the fused equipment and it can be melted down for wax or pried apart at leisure. Not fast but would be minimum disruption to bees.

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Originally Posted by whiskers

Somewhere I've read that a good place to begin, when everything has been attached together, is to take a whole box, turn it upside down on a piece of plywood or something similar, then cut between the frames and the box with a long knife, then lift the box off the frames. Then you can easily separate the frames and do what you have to do.
Bill

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Thank you for your advice.

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Originally Posted by Vance G

I expect that warmth is not the issue. I am sure you will have 80 degree days yet and that is more than warm enough. But until you get something blooming flowers, the bees will tend to be defensive. I wonder if the guy who had the bee quit working them because they were too hot tempered for him to enjoy? I know all the feral bees in Las Vegas are africanized but it sounds like you are quite a way north of there. Just pay attention suiting up until you know what you are dealing with and be careful. Lift one side and see how heavy they are too! If they are short of stores, that makes bees grumpy and you may need to feed them.

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Thanks for getting back to me.

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Originally Posted by Vance G

The easiest way to handle this might be to under super these colonies and the queens will move down onto the new equipment. ...

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Tried and pathetically failed. In my hands (well, in bees "hands") it did not work at all in few occasions. The only way it worked to me was when I moved the box in question on top of the hive and removed it month later full of honey. But, it is SoCal... To control swarming, I tried to break the nest by introducing an empty box in the middle of the nest - it was empty for a few months, sort of empty - there were a lot of really angry girls in that box every time I checked the hive, but no comb at all! Finally,I moved the empty box two story up and .... girls decided to move the nest in that box... they insisted top entrance for that occasion... 2 month later, they moved down and box was filled with honey and hive swarmed... because I was trying to shrink bees operation for the winter and reduced the hive to 5 mediums... apparently there was not enough space for them in the end of November...