Adding sugar and honey to sourdough culture
Adding sugar or honey to a sourdough culture will increase the activity of the yeast for a little while, but it is unlikely to create "new types of flavour". Honey and Sucrose (Table sugar) are both just simpler sources of glucose and fructose that the sourdough microbes usually get from breaking down the starches in flour. Unlike flour, honey and sugar do not provide much (if any) protein which the sourdough microbes need in order to grow and reproduce. The effect of sugar or honey on the lactobacilli isn't predictable without knowing which specie are active in your specific starter.  Some prefer maltose almost exclusively and would slow down if fed sucrose or honey, while others prefer fructose and would become especially active if fed honey; possibly leading to more sourness in the final product.

The purpose of a starter is to leaven bread composed of mostly flour and water. As such, it has always been my opinion that you should only feed your starter flour and water. Adding other things only serves to contaminate the culture or "teach" it to need additional food sources.

If you just really want to experiment feed you mother culture normally a few times, let it become active then set aside half of it for experimentation and half for safe keeping.

See Also:


Sourdough starter developing alcohol