No, bees are fed sugar water to build the colony in slack spring times when their honey is used up or to start a new colony with no stores.
A prudent bee keeper always leaves enough honey to get them trough the winter, taking only that above the estimated winter usage.
Also, a bee swarm sprayed with sugar water becomes distracted and gentler to handle.
You are correct with all three statements. I only feed my bees when they are not full strength hives. I do not strip them of all their honey, and I use it at times to capture swarms.
If the honey is gone, eaten or removed, they have to be fed.
I don’t remember how they fed the sugar to them. Smokers were used control the bees. My Dad had nearly a 1/4 mile
of hives, single & 2 story at the peak. they were on a terrace up grade of a pecan orchard. He moved some of the
singles to other locations in the spring. He sold the bees
and around 1100 white goats in 1946 or 7 except 4 hives, used a bush & bog tiller (2,5 or 3’ disc) to dispose of some
tangle of late blooming brush that was down grade of a cotton field, planted grass and stocked more cattle. He also was in the piling business with a partner from 1942-1945, he bought the land, they cut the piling, pecker wood sawmill moved in for timber, sold the land. Primary
business was wholesale and retail nursery. As I got in business myself I could not believe how he kept things running
so smooth.