There are lots of interesting comments in this thread. I would definitely requeen any colonies as hot as Dee Lusby's. Solomon Parker lost all his bees on at least one occasion and had problems with winter loss just about every year. All the signs were that his bees were on a cycle of spring swarm, fall mites, next spring build up, dead by fall. It is not possible to breed resistant bees when resistant genetics are not in the bee population.
As for very hot hives, I've had a few experiences over the years. Back in 1991, I had purchased 30 odd colonies from another beekeeper who was retiring. One of the colonies had AFB, was extremely strong anyway, had been blown over by a strong wind, and was being robbed through the open bottom. I decided to set them back up on their stand (not knowing about the AFB at the time) wearing a veil and using a very well lit smoker. They came out after me at the first puff of smoke with at least 5000 bees in the air. I took over 150 stings in less than a minute. That was one time I backed off, got in the truck, and left for another day when I came back wearing a full suit.
I also helped a local beekeeper remove honey from his bees about 6 years ago. One of them turned out to be extremely aggressive. Using a bee blower and smoking them heavily, I eventually got 3 supers of very good honey off. Small tip, if you have a very aggressive hive, put the blower nozzle to the intake on a smoker and you can blow absolute clouds of smoke for about 3 minutes until the fuel runs out. Do NOT do this unless you are in a situation where nobody else is likely to be stung as the bees will spread out and sting anything that moves outside the cloud of smoke. Before anyone asks, this was not an africanized hive. They were mostly black mellifera based bees and they had an extremely good/bad queen. Good because she laid a hive full of workers and bad because they were off the scale aggressive. I had inspected them in the spring with no issues, but when no-nectar August came around and I started removing honey, they went ballistic. That was arguably the second strongest colony I've ever worked.
