Two years ago I had two hives that became very aggressive, and people were getting stung when they were not even close to the hive. When I worked the hives, they would start battering my veil as others have described.
One hive was a solitary hive, the other was one of four.  The one of four stood out because of the way the bees flushed out of the hive and attacked when a gloved hand was inserted gently inside the entrance.
Both hives were newly queened that Spring (among several others), both had honey on them, and neither were queenless. I ended up moving both hives to a remote area, pulling the brood boxes off and setting them 20 feet away, them after a few days going in again and requeening.  I had to move the brood boxes becuase this was mid summer and there just too many bees for me to find the queen. Once the foragers and field bees were not in the brood boxes, but back in the original colony, I was able to find the queens.
In the one case were the aggressive hive was one of four, field hands were being stung on the farm a hundred yards from the hive. Once I moved that one hive, the stinging stopped. I attributed the cause to nasty queens.
C. Crowell - NJ

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