Thanks for the responses. That makes sense that sugar water would get the queen going more than capped honey. My best guess on why they died was varroa. I did OAV in the fall. 5 treatments 4 days apart. They were really strong going into winter. There were a fair amount of dead bees in the hive along with the queen. The brood looked fine but I did order a AFB testing kit and everything came back fine there. I've been freezing all the frames just in case.
Yes to your original question. I will put a swarm or a package on some comb with Pollen and some honey to get them started. Not completely understanding leaving the honey and making light Syrup. Several years ago, I received packages early, 6 of them. we still had snow, appx 16 inches on the ground. I hauled the packages in with a sled, to my bee area. Gave each 8 frames of comb, consisting of 2 honey 1 pollen and the rest mostly open.
in 2 weeks the snow melted, A week after that, I was able to take time to go look. All 6 had 3-5 frames with bees and brood and they picked up a took off from there. IMO depending on how many packages you get and how many dead out frames of comb you have I would not be afraid to give a package a full box of comb. Arrange them with the honey on the outside 2 frames, (1 and 10) less honey some pollen on the next 2 (2 and 9) and emptiest ones in the middle. (for a 10 frame box example) Agree, with above messages, do have a look for EFB, but if Mites got the current hive, and you freeze them for a week or 2 the frames should be fine.
GG