I ended up leaving four supers with just a brood box, nothing else on top. With three other hives, I left a Manley super in top of the brood chamber. I wasn't sure if this was a mistake, but they had a decent amount of structure and I felt it might have been too cramped trying to put them into a single brood box.
I removed the hive mat and put newspaper on top. I made a syrup using half honey, half water and placed it into sand which bags, which I left open with many holes pinches into it with a nail. I then covered the paper and bag with white sugar. The syrup helped moisten the sugar, I also sprinkled a little bit of water on it.
On the seven hives I used about 6 kilos of honey and 12 kilos of sugar. Im very surprised by how quickly they ate into it. I gave some hives a top up of sugar before I left, as they ate it so fast that a decent chunk of it was already removed during the dew hours that I was there.
I checked and confirmed that the hive does indeed have a queen. She wasn't laying anythhing at all though. I hope with the amount of sugar I gave them, that they'll reconsider this.
In how many days would it be suitable to check up on them again?