Ouch. Same thing happened to me today.  It rained fairly heavily
last night, was supposed to be sunny today.  I figured, great - it will be
cooler after the front goes thru, and harvesting will be a comfortable
exercise.
        I had put some escape boards on a couple of nights before.  That
was difficult, as the hives (3 deeps plus 4-5 mediums) at this yard were so
crammed with bees that they filled the space above the inner cover and were
still plastered on the front of the hive.  I could hardly remove the heavy
supers off the stacks to get the escape boards on.  (Had to stand on a milk
crate.)  Even then I only put them under the top two supers.
        Anyway, I got over there this afternoon and found that the bees did
NOT all exit the supers according to plan.  Not only that, they were EVIL.
Have the africanized stock taken over up here in NY?!  Good thing I had a
bee suit - I still must have gotten a dozen determined stings beneath or
through it, and I think that was lucky!  Since the escapes didn't seem to
be working (triangle-trap, board type) I had to shake the bees off all the
combs, which were fat, chock-full and laden with honey-filled burr comb.
My gloves got all honied to the point that it was hard to grip the heavy
frames - they were too slippery.  The bees were smashing into my helmet
like little bullets.  Meanwhile others were sticking to the gloves and
getting mashed.  What an uproar.  The smoke only seemed to rile them more.
By the way this was all on the hive #1.  I only got honey from two hives
(about 9 supers) and I had to retreat.
        I'll be back tomorrow, but I'm sure there will be leftovers chasing
me again after that.  So much for the nice day - maybe they were still
grumpy from the rain yesterday.  These hives are normally of
above-average-good temperment and a pleasure to work.  (I'm going to try
soaking the bee-gloves in vinegar-water to clean them and then let them
dry.  They are probably reeking of venom from a bee's standpoint.)  A truly
amazing crop this summer, tho' I must say! The supers are like lead, and
its practically as light-colored as corn syrup.  Quite a contrast to last
summer's dark honeydew-rich crop.   Good luck Tim, don't get discouraged!