What to Do with Frames - Keep Comb or Melt/Reapply?

[TonyBOD]

I am a new beekeeper - I got my first hive this spring. It's been a blast and my bees appear to have done well and are in good shape for the fall/winter (population is very good, lots of honey in the 2 deeps).

Unfortuantely, my bees never worked my honey super hard and I ended up with really nothing to extract. Yesterday I pulled the honey super off (a medium) and only about 4 frames had any comb drawn out - not great considering it had been on the hive for the past 8+ weeks. I left the frames out and the bees took back the small amount of honey on those frames.

So now my question - what should I do with the frames of partially drawn out comb? It's plastic foundation and my guess is that the bees took the original wax coating off of it earlier in the season for use elsewhere in the hive, making these frames unappealing when it came time to draw them out (we also had a pretty good dearth due to lack of rain so i knew comb building would sufer). On the one hand I could leave the comb as is and hope that the bees start repairing it and finish drawing the comb next season when I put the box back on. On the other hand, I could take the wax off, melt it down and reapply a layer of way to all the frames so perhaps they are more appealing to the bees next year.

Thoughts on keeping the frames as is vs. melting down/reapplying wax?

[Bennettoid]

Save them for next year, they'll have a little headstart.

[Scadsobees]

Leave it as is....next year they will start in that comb right away.  Then they will keep going in that super.  And you probably don't really have enough wax there to melt to a significant amount.

Usually people are told not to plan on any surplus the first year, so sounds like you are normal (although it is dissapointing!!).

Rick