Adding syrup, whether light or heavy, can be beneficial or not based on when, where and what's going on in the hive and in the surrounding landscape. Beekeepers who can manipulate their hives with that understanding and knowledge tend to have good bees year-after-year. Drawing comb isn't without consequences and swarming can be an issue if you don't provide enough space at the right time--it's certainly a balancing act and every beekeeper has swarms; trick is to have as few as possible. Lee, I do believe that feed and queen performance are related and I tend to err on the protein side when I'm trying to maximize brood production. For example this fall, I first fed patties early because I had lots of space for egg laying and the hives were heavy with honey. These would be the hives with LOTS of bees that consume lots of food so they open up comb fairly quick. They can be deceiving too because many of them will die from old age so getting those next brood cycles is important, especially for wintering or for strong pollination hives in February. After feeding the sub, I tip the hives and gave the light ones a little syrup. You can gauge the strength of the hive based on the rate that they throw wax paper out the front door (I wrap my sub in wax paper). Right now, the brood is pretty much gone, so I'm adding syrup to get the weight up to carry them till I get to work them in January. On that trip, my goal is to ramp up brood production for almond pollination and I will follow the same basic regime. By January, the comb should open up from bees eating the syrup stores so the same basic routine. We'll check mites and vaporize at the start of the trip if needed, then add 2 lbs of patty and follow that with syrup. We'll vaporize at the end of the week, if needed and head home. I think one of the problems that folks have with low production of winter bees is that hives tend to get honey bound and the bees have basically no place to lay; winter bees are really important and the key to having that hive survive till spring. Late in the year (fall) so not as much concern about swarming. Adding syrup then would be a poor choice; adding extra drawn frames would be a better option. We've all had honey bound hives in fall; small clusters and tons of honey. Usually don't make it because they lack critical mass of winter bees and they are easy targets for robbing, especially in California holding yards where there are thousands of hives in fairly close proximity to one another. As silly as it seems, I buy those huge colored thumb pins with heads about the size of a dime. Then, as I'm going through the hives adding pollen sub, I'll mark the lid of hives that need some special attention (e.g., add comb, feed me now, etc) with a unique color. That makes it easier for me to keep track of the hives and provide treatments based on the needs of individual hives.
Inverting sugar takes time and energy by the bees. Many commercial folks use HFCS because it adds more weight to the hive than plain old sugar (it's also more convenient but I believe plain old sugar is healthier) . That's because the bees have to expend energy to invert sugar so part of the syrup is used as fuel for that process.
