> my colleague from Europe thought that our local beekeeper should not keep back supers of honey in the comb for feeding in late winter, early spring.
> Again, in his mind, fondant was superior to all feed stocks.

Context is the key.  In the deep of winter, if I could feed good
fondant without disturbing the brood nest, and I had enough good
fondant in trays, I would prefer the fondant.

If the winter were past and spring beginning, I would prefer the
combs, assuming they were not too stale.

Even a small rearrangement of the brood nest in winter increases
mortality.  Rob Currie reported noticing that even doing the minor
work of inserting sampling probes while the bees were in winter
cluster had that effect.

I have some hives on a scale and did a major disturbance the other
day.  They went from consuming almost nothing over preceding 24 hour
periods to losing a half-pound in two hours immediately after the
manipulation!  That manipulation was -- in my mind at least -- nothing
as severe as removing and adding new, totally unfamiliar combs.  (I
merely removed some upper boxes on which there were a few bees at the
very top of the cluster and brushed, shook or blew those few bees
down).

So, what I am saying is that it may not be the feed, It may be the
amount of associated disturbance.

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