Hive assebled wrong HELP!

Beekeeping - Basics
1

I inherited an active hive and equipment.
I need to relocate it to my property.
I noticed some issues.

  1. Its assembled wrong, here is the order they did it in.
    a. Elevated stand of cement blocks
    b. Bottom board
    c. No entrance reducer
    d. Deep hive body
    e. Inner cover/crown board
    f. Medium honey super
    g. Roof/Outer cover

  2. I also noticed very many big black ants leaving hive with larva in their mouth.

  3. It looks like another possible issue because there are lots of dead bees on the ground around hive.

So, considering all these issues i dont know what to do first.
Its August 28th and we are located in s.e. MO. Owner states they’ve done no V.M. treatment and this is the first year for the hive. Owner states they only opened the hive a few times, and didnt know what they were looking for other then the queen in the beginning. They added the honey super thinking it was how you expand the hive. They did so because the used it at first with no frames, but fed the bees in it and upon inspection of food noticed bees had built honeycomb up into the empty honey super so the removed all of it, and the feeder and put in frames… they state that uncapped honey cells are on the middle frames last time they looked in.

I myself am a newbie to this beekeeping experience. But i do realize the hive is not assembled correctly.

I want to take it to my property asap as owner is moving and stated landlord wants it gone.

Please advise me how to proceed. Any and all suggestions/help is appreciated greatly!!

TIA*strong text*

2

Hello Jinn and welcome to the forum! How sad that these owners neglected things to this point - black ants making off with larvae doesn’t bode too well for this colony. I encourage you to contact your local bee club to get experienced help with the situation. It’s best to do a thorough inspection before moving this hive to your property. It may even be something the state licensing board has rules/guidelines about for the sake of managing the potential spread of disease.

Best case scenario would be no major disease or small hive beetle infestation, just a weakened post-swarmed colony that the ants are taking advantage of. Condensing down to enough but not too much space and appropriate feeding is the best remedy (along with relocating away from the ant colony) in that situation. But you won’t know til you get a good look.

Fixing the hive configuration is the easy part, which you can do as you set the hive up at your place, if there is still a viable colony in there. I’m very curious to hear what you find when you inspect - please keep us posted!