After dropping way down over the winter, the bee population in a hive starts to build up again quickly in the spring as days grow longer and warmer. The hive entity, of course, wants to be at full strength when the major nectar flows come on in May-July.
March is a critical month to keep a close watch on your hive to ensure that the bees don't starve- I'm told that hives may eat as much in a month in the early spring as they did over the 3-4 winter months combined- lots of new mouths to feed!
People use all kinds of sugar sources to feed their bees: sugar syrup, candy canes, "fondant." I use a sugar syrup solution (1:1 sugar:water) in a 'Boardman Feeder' pictured here. While my initial inclination was to make the syrup using honey (as in this picture), I have since learned that simply using white, granulated sugar is easier on the bees because it more closely mimics a nectar that they would naturally prefer.
Making honey, after all, is the bee's strategy to preserve nectar- not a method of converting it into a preferred form of carbohydrates. It's also worth noting (for those of us who try to avoid processed sugar) that the bees are not converting your sugar syrup into honey that you're going to eat- it's just keeping them going during the nectar dearth in the early spring.
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