# Recover wax from hive that didn't make it through winter?



## Maxpowers (Apr 4, 2012)

They actually made it through the winter but not the spring. They went into the winter with two full supers. One of the first warm days in the spring I checked and the bottom one was empty, the top one was still heavy. About a month and a half later both boxes were empty and no bees left. I had started to feed them sugar water but didn't think they needed much so I only gave them a couple of pints. Maybe I didn't give them enough or they got robbed. 

So now I have to boxes of nice comb. What can I do with it? They're wooden frames with the thin plastic foundations.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Put new bees on it. Scrape the wax off and melt it in a solar melter of double boiler. then you can search the net for 1001 uses for bees wax and put it to work.

 Al


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## Maxpowers (Apr 4, 2012)

Do I need to completely clean the frames off? As in sanitize and everything or should I leave some comb behind?

I thought it'd be nice to have the wax. I did some searching, looks like I could harvest it with a pillow case and my turkey fryer?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

If your going to scrape the wax off I would go ahead and put the frames in a bleach bath at 4:1. leave them soak about 3 days then rinse them off and allow to dry.

 Al


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## cotton45c (Jun 23, 2014)

i'd keep the drawn comb, big head start for other hives.


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## Steve in PA (Nov 25, 2011)

Make swarm traps with the old frames. Split it up and you'll probably catch several new hives from the remnants of that one hive.


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