Thanks so much for your reply! Yes, I was most interested in what to supplement bees' foraging with when getting a new colony established since honey stores will be empty (first hive!), and then of course it's also important to think ahead to potential food shortages for them as well. I'm fortunate enough to have about 100 jars of quality honey I helped to harvest myself from healthy bees last summer, so although it's not still capped in a frame I do believe it's a safe source of nutrition.
There is nothing wrong with feeding honey from a jar, I've done it myself several times, just so long as you can trust the source and it's not too cold. I just put one of my feeder lids that has holes punched in it on the jar, turn it upside down over the inner cover, and away we go. With a setup like mine though, if the ambient temperature is low, then the honey will be cold since it's not in with the bees, and they will refuse to take it because it would lower their body temperature. But for helping a new colony build up in the spring, that shouldn't be a problem.
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