Can I retroactovely award a bounty?

Question

I see that this meta question states that I cannot award any points from a bounty after the bounty period expired.

I had a question that was on bounty for a while and nobody answered. I assume, therefore, that nothing was awarded, right?

Today, someone answered the question and I'd like to award a bounty. It doesn't seem like I can do this.

Perhaps, some feature could be added whereby I could award the bounty? Or, do I have to "trick" the system, and begin a new bounty on the question?

If I do that, is there some way that I can now award a bounty on a previous answer, or does the responder have to delete his answer, create a new one and paste his old answer into the new one so that it's current?

Answer 1

If a question received no new answers during the bounty period, then no bounty points were auto-awarded. The bounty simply ends forever. There's no way to "restore" an old bounty. Once the period is up, it's done.

You can add a new bounty to the question. The answerer does not need to repost his or her answer. You can award the bounty to the already existing answer. In fact, one of the bounty reasons is "Reward an existing answer."

I believe even with that bounty reason, though, you still have to wait the waiting period before awarding the bounty.