Empty frames after extraction

[vadentwin]

I pulled a 10 deep each off my two bigger hives yesterday. Got close to 80lbs of delicious dark honey.

My question is...

Should I put the deeps back on the hives for them to fix the comb and start using again? The last few frames I pulled were put in the freezer for a few days then I put them in my garage to keep them out of the weather. The moths decimated them and I had to just trash them. How do you keep moths and other insects out of your equipment? I'm assuming Black Flag is a bad idea. Right now the deeps are in the yard getting cleaned up by any bee interested but I need to get them out of the weather soon. Doesn't seem to be much traffic on them considering we are suppose to be in a dearth, but there are a dozen or so girls filling up.

[Andrew in SE GA]

I have some non-working fridges and freezers that I keep frames in. I usually just put 2 or 3 pellets of para moth in the bottom and make sure the doors seal tight. You can use the mothballs that have paradichlorobenzene as the active ingredient but not any other kind. I usually stack my extracted frames back on my strong hives and leave them until September. This gives the bees time to fix the combs for next year and gives them more room because it is very hot here in Southeast Georgia right now. I also have one working freezer that I put frames in that still have small amounts of honey in them.

[vadentwin]

Thanks Andrew,
With that advise I am going to put these extracted deeps back. Went out to look at the extracted boxes this morning and there are quite a few more bees cleaning them up. I am going to let them clean/rob the remaining honey and then put them back on the hives I took them from before the afternoon storms start up.

Appreciate you response