Spring approaching, neglected apiary

[TheFuzz]

Hello,

I live in Australia and spring time will be here in one month.

I have 14 hives and they've all been largely neglected for the last two years. I've barely opened them or done much of anything with them during that time.

They're all quite full of honey. 1 of them is a single deep, 3 of them are two deeps, the rest are three or four deep. They're all quite difficult to open and pick up frames, as they're all stuck down with propolis and beeswax. I've snapped hive tools and damaged my supers trying to lift frames from them before.

Last year, I had a number of bees swarm from my hives. I figure it will happen again.

I'm a bit unsure how to generally proceed and would appreciate advice. I figure I need to open up each hive, and I need to free up space for the brood chamber. I probably need to do a honey extraction to free up space.

I've never done a split before, and I don't really have the space for more hives I'm over capacity as is, but I could try to sell some splits/hives or find somewhere else to move some hives. I just realise that my hives are going to probably swarm and I'm wondering if I should try to split my hives because of so. Should I go looking at my hives to find queen cells and if I do, then attempt to do a split? I've never tried to find a queen cell before and I'm nervous to look all over the hive due to not wanting to kill bees and cause issues from tearing apart frames, its all very stuck, but if its what I need to do let me know.

I have a honey extractor. When I open up hives, should I have the honey extractor set up and ready to process? Then, as soon as I find some large honey frames that are taking up too much space, I could take them to the extractor and spin it straight away? I'm not sure if I should heat the frames a little first, and also not sure if taking out frames for a few hours and leaving the hive empty of some frames is a bad idea. If it is, I could replace the frames I take with empty frames, and then when the honey extraction is done, I could then switch out the empty frames I added with the sticky frames from the extractor?

[Ben Framed]

They're all quite difficult to open and pick up frames, as they're all stuck down with propolis and beeswax.

I use the (pry bar) type hive tool so commonly used, except I use a stainless steel version with a >longer< Hook sticking out of the bottom side. Simply use the flat wide side to slightly separate the frames bars by sliding this sharp flat feature between the end bars then use the hook to easily lift each side of the frame. This is fast and easy even on the (tough ones). By using this method you will not have to worry about your frames separating or coming apart. Propolis is a heavy produced product of the beehive in my area of Mississippi.

[Beeboy01]

I wouldn't suggest setting up the extractor in the yard, there is a good chance extracting in the open next to the hives will start a robbing frenzy.

 I would think pulling the full frames and leaving open space in the hives would work as long as you get the wet extracted frames back into the hives withing two days. Replacing them with new frames will give you a chance to sort out any old frames but then you will need to dry and store the extracted frames then protect them from wax moths.
 
  You might want to work half of your hives, extract and replace the wet frames then go on to the remaining hives just so you don't get overwhelmed with a job that is too big.  12 hives that haven't been worked for two years will be a big job, space the work load out over a few days and it will be a lot easier and the bees will appreciate it too.