Will bees clean old hives?

[battatter]

I inherited hives from my Dad. I cleaned one out, and hadn't got to the others yet. But the next day a swarm moved into an old one. There was a hive in there last year, but I didn't bother it, just let them live there. My question, will the new swarm clean out the old hive enough that I could collect the honey later? or would that not be a good idea to eat it?

[kathyp]

yes, they will clean out the old hive.  whether of not you get honey is another question    you'll be putting honey supers on for that and if they look dirty, you can change the foundation.  in fact, i like to use new frames when i do that because putting new foundation in old frames is a pain.  frames are not expensive. 

[AllenF]

The bees will clean and polish everything on the inside of a hive.   They will do a much better job cleaning it than you could ever do.  And welcome to the forum.

[G3farms]

As Kathy said you will need to add supers to the hives so the bees will have winter stores to survive. Depending on where you are located will depend on how much honey they will need to over winter.