>>2741879They don't need sugar if you leave them enough honey to overwinter. No problem, if you don't want honey to begin with.
One thing that could work is to leave them with all of their honey stores at the end of the year and then open the hives in spring and remove most of the empty combs to harvest the wax. They will then build new comb for the years brood and honey.
You dont need to bother with wax foundation for the frames if you dont want to harvest honey anyways. Saves a bunch of material and work.
During the season, you probably will have trouble removing comb while giving them back their honey as
>>2741823 pointed out. You could try removing comb one or two at a time, remove the caps, let the bees move the honey, harvest the comb and wait for them to build a few new ones.
It's honestly a really weird way of managing them, so there's really no "best practice" of harvesting wax + not harvesting honey established. There's probably some ways to maximize their wax production if you experiment with it.
