> You can feed Bakers' fondant at any time of the year.

As the former owner of a chain of 5 bakeries, I would advise against feeding any "baking fondant" product sold in the USA  to overwintering bees without a slow and careful examination of the ingredients list.
Every product I saw available for sale contained a long list of chemical stabilizers, emulsifiers, and preservatives. 
While none of this would likely be overtly and acutely toxic to bees, it would all be impurities that the bees could not digest, the equivalent of "ash" in honey, defeating the entire purpose of feeding a "pure sugar" for overwintering.

Making your own candyboards is a worthwhile and cost-effective effort for all but the largest operations.

We made our own fondants in-house at the Flying Pig Bakeries, as the commercial stuff was nowhere near as good as even the most basic recipe taken directly from any of the Jacques Torres candy references, and when we made a cake, we took pride in making the whole cake, entirely from out big bag of Scratch.

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