Cleaning up frames after extracting honey?

[EOHenry]

As this is my first year, I am happy just to be extracting some honey. I took two supers off my hive and was going to extract both of them with the help of a 3rd year keeper.  The lower one had some brood in it so he told me to return it to the hive, which I did. After we extracted the other one, I returned it also to the hive but set it on top of the inner cover hoping the girls would clean it up. Three days later I checked it and found what appeared they were starting to refill the cells instead of cleaning them out. So I took the super off and set the frames around the back yard and watched the frenzy. Two days later the frames were completely cleaned off. Should I have left the super on? I already had a new deep super on top that was almost full of nector, some cells already capped which I was leaving on for winter.
  One more question.  My sister gave me almost a gal. of old honey which had crystalized.  Can this be used as food somehow in the Spring instead of sugar water?
  Thanx for any suggestions!

EOHenry

[golfpsycho]

feeding honey of unkown origin is probably not a great idea.  foul brood spore are almost indestructable.  I have always done what you did with wet supers.  Keeping them inside a super on a hive helps keep robbing down.  Sometimes, when the frenzy starts, it's hard to stop em if they aren't finding any nectar.  It they are making honey, why not put the super back on and give em a chance to fil it?  Sounds like they must be making some to move up and start filling instead of cleaning.

[Anonymous]

I agree with golfpsyco, feeding honey to your hive could introduce diseases even from store bought honey. If your bees were re-filling the super you should have moved it back down below the inner cover to see what they would have put in it. They are obviously still bringing in nectar from somewhere.

If you put extracted frames out in your yard once you have more than one hive you could start a robbing situation between your stonger hives and your weaker hives. If you decide to do this in the future (once you have more than one hive) be sure to place the frames at least 200 feet  away from your apiary. This will lessen the chance of robbing in your apiary.