> I do have a plan but am interested in other options.

I have no problems with my hips or back but for the past couple of years I have been enlisting help taking off honey. The work is more enjoyable with a group. I recommend enlisting students, friends, whomever you can get, to help with heavy lifting. 

Assuming the bees are alive next spring, I would consider this: reverse the hive placing the supers you want emptied at the bottom of the stack. Bees don't like honey below the brood nest, near the entrance. 

It is possible that by spring, all the brood will be at the top, in which case putting them at the bottom is still the best plan. They should move upward and leave these emptied out eventually, if you add supers above the stack. 

I tend to over-super and sometimes the bees abandon the first box for much of the season. I really don't see this as a problem, maybe even helps keep them from being overcrowded.

PLB

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