In article <<[log in to unmask]>, you wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have a naturally aggressive hive, which someone has given me (lucky me). They seem
> healthy etc, but even on good days, during a flow and will fly off the combs and
> attack. It is virtually impossible to get through the brood box of these bees without a
> lot of trouble. They are in sharp contrast to my other bees which are very easy to
> handle.
>
> The problem is I find I can't find the queen during my hurried and distracted
> inspections.
 
You can get a new young caged queen, take her, ~3 frames of brood+adhering
bees, some frames of pollen/honey+additional bees from the old hive, place a
double screen board on top of the old hive, the new nuc on top of this, and
give the nuc its own entrance.  After several weeks you can either try to find
the old queen and kill her, or failing that, replace the double screen board
with a sheet of newspaper and hope the new young queen wins the battle of the
queens (she usually will) when the bees eat the newspaper away, slowly
reuniting the two colonies.
 
-Mike