# Can these combs be reused



## smworker1 (Oct 19, 2015)

First post here.
My neighbor gave me 4top bar and 16 langstroth hives (no bees) he has cancer and can't take care of them anymore. 
I still need to go back over in the evening and pick up the 3 hives with bees after I build the stands.
But my question is can I reuse any of the combs from the empty hives he gave me, and just add a package of bees to them next spring, after some slight cleanup?
Hopefully the picture come out 
The combs range from lite color ones to dark ones







Or should I just throw them into the burn pile Like I did all the worn down hives?


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## allniter (Aug 22, 2011)

yes U sure can


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## lemmje (Feb 23, 2015)

Earlier this year I caught a small swarm and didn't have any resources to put them on. A friend gave me a very black frame of drawn comb with some old honey in it from a deadout last winter. That frame was the beginning of the salvation of that little swarm. 

They took to that black comb and within days the queen was happily laying eggs while the rest of them went to work on building more comb. 

Drawn comb is like gold to a new beekeeper. Use it everywhere you can. And pay your good fortune forward.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Yes! And the bees will benefit greatly!


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

You should go over the old brood comb carefully -- looking for evidence of "scale" -- which are the dried larvae following American Foul Brood ( AFB ) infection.

AFB is becoming common again in California. There are several reasons for this -- colonies that died from Varroa before they expressed Foul Brood are now living longer - foul brood is a slow relentless disease. Many new beekeepers are collecting "cut outs" as a fetish - believing in the "feral bee". Long term locations that have been unmanaged are also near perfect long-term refugia for foul brood. Many new keepers have limited experience with AFB and pass it along to other keeps inadvertently.

So approach the old comb carefully -- I recommend a "quarantine" yard -- where new introductions are housed and evaluated for at least 4 months before being brought to the main apiary.

I don't mean to spook you, just do some research on AFB and its brood symptoms (pinhole caps, sunken, greasy caps, and scale) and be alert.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

This video was helpful to me: www.beekeeping.isgood.ca/pest-and-disease/learn-to-identify-american-foulbrood-in-90-seconds


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## biggraham610 (Jun 26, 2013)

JW I must say it is disheartening to hear you say that AFB is making a comeback out west. Thanks for sharing, and for your advice to the OP. G


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Welcome to BeeSource! I would melt comb down before I burned it. You can strain any impurities like cocoons, dead bees, etc. out. Agree with JW on being careful with old comb unless I knew what killed the hive(s). Those combs in the pictures don't look very old (the front two, the one in the back I would use in a trap hive, it's OLD).


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## smworker1 (Oct 19, 2015)

Thanks for the heads up, I'm not sure what killed the hives off previous owner said he hasn't been to them in over a year.
Looking over the combs I only find capped pollen, and a few cap cells that are filled with something that is hard as a rock, and some have wax moth damage, no moths now and a few ants and earwigs were in them eating I guess
The other hives at the site seem to be in good health


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