(I like to just give them frames of honey)
Economically this is not the better choice since the cost of HFCS or Refined sugar is 1/2 the value of Extracted honey. Also I took a pretty sever beating awhile back for stating my opinion that honey is the beteer bee food. The educated consensus is syrup or HFCS is the better food for bees!!! Beeks often have frames of honey from non-AFB deadouts and such which I would use as oppose to extract.
Chef, Early feeding will help stimulate your hives to build up early. Of course a month or 2 differce you mention would be a huge difference. I have found in our climate in the Finger lakes, a split or package started the 1st. of May will consistenly out perform a nuc started the 20 of April. A pollen source will be necessary for brood. We've used hive top feeders also. I would never use a plastic one again If I could get them for free. They break easily(many arrived cracked), are hard for bee feet to hold on to and have not been a good experiance in our operation. The wooden hive top feeders work very well if you are running telescoping covers with inner covers. They are an open invitation to robbing and drown bees with migraratory covers.
Of course adjust my experiances to your climate and Bloom cycles. Happy splitting!!
[ January 07, 2006, 09:03 AM: Message edited by: Joel ]