spring buildup

My hive is not doing well. Here it is late spring (Nov = May in Northern hemisphere). At the end of the winter there was an equivalent of 8 full full-size frames with capped honey from the last season. Due to some unfortunate circumstances (and my mistakes) the hive was queenless for a month...

This is my first overwintering and I need to know when to start feeding to initiate brood buildup. I expect april 1 is the target date to have foragers available. I have both nuc's and full size hives. And do I feed patties and thin syrup (2 parts water, 1 part sugar) to trigger the queen to lay?

I've been doing more testing with Opening the Sides of the Broodnest with three of my hives that each overwintered in a single 10 frame deep. First year beekeepers usually don't have spare drawn comb, so this appears to be working well in getting comb drawn before swarm season. Swarm season...