My Bees Hate Me.

I have 2 beehives now.  The first was given to us and hadn't had anything done with it for a couple of years.  The bees are dark and nasty, aggressive little sods that want to sting anyone that goes near their hive.  If someone actually gets up close and starts to work around it...they come out in the thousands and chase you away.  Well they try to anyway and a few months ago they did, they chased me away every time.   They made me squeal and run walk quickly away.   Now though, not so much.  I have put me big girl panties overalls on and braved the swarm of people hating bees. 
I've been out there a few times over the last week, since the husband put on another super for me.  By myself which is good 'cept there is no-one to see how brave I am being.

The hive now has 4 boxes and the top one needs extracting.  Soon.  I was going to do it yesterday but this hive is in amongst bushes and long grass and after seeing that snake the other day I wasn't going to be in there.  So yesterday I cut back some branches and whippersnippered the long grass around the hive.  They didn't like that!!    I quickly left and went back later to rake it all clear.  Spoke to husband last night to find out my next step.  "Crack the hive" he says.  Ummm, OK...How do I do that.
  
This morning before Vinnies I dressed for success and went out there to 'crack the hive"   Smoker stops smoking so back in and get that going again.  I *fixed* this smoker yesterday and I think I fixed it wrong because it doesn't seem to stay alight as well now.  I will unfix it if it happens again.  With bees buzzing around me and dive-bombing my head I tried to get the hive tool under the top-box.  It was stuck down tight but I eventually managed to get it under the edge but when trying to prise it off the edges broke away.  This box is/was the original box and has wood-rot through it.  Tried a different spot, then another. I did manage to get the tool under and shifted the box a little bit over.  This is supposed to make it easier and cleaner when I go out to lift the box off for extracting.  Another Hmmm here.  The box is heavy and too high for me to lift off.  My plan is to extract a few frames at a time until the box is light enough for me to lift.  If husband helps me he will lift it off but either way it needs to be *cracked*

And I was supposed to buy some kilo buckets to put the honey in.  I haven't and I can't find my big bucket so not sure what to do with this honey tomorrow.  I need to stay on top of things.  Not sure why I don't but it sure would be less stressful if I did.  I now have a few things that need doing by tomorrow whereas I have had a couple of months to get organised but didn't.  HoHum.

Eventually we will re-queen this hive and the new bees will be quiet and docile....  My new bees will not hate me...