"...Ability to use the candy relies on availability of water which is more likely as the winter wanes..."

Not really.... the rising heat from the cluster and the moisture created by the heat coming from the cluster will be absorbed by the candy board (which covers ALL ten frames) or the candy brick, or the fondant, or the pile of dry sugar which is on top of a piece of newspaper laid across approx 8 frames.

The moisture is the reason for having some sort of ventilation at the top of the hive.

The heat and the moisture helps "soften"  the supplemental feed source of sugar (what we refer to as the insurance policy) when the cluster reaches the top of the frames in the uppermost brood box and it is too cold for the cluster to move side to side (or it refuses to move because tending to brood which has not emerged yet).

This is one of the advantages of the candy board since the emergency food source will be above where ever the winter cluster is.

The down side is some bee keepers do not like having to switch out a candy board which is 85% consumed for a new one (it is something I do not mind doing) and it is easier and quicker for them to add another sugar brick or missouri krabby patty and close the colony back up.

The saying goes, you can tell an old bee keeper, but you cannot tell them much..... did not hold true as far as supplemental food sources for winter. 

..... we had some very "seasoned" and experienced bee keepers (who have been keeping bees since the mid 1970s) become advocates of the supplemental food source (in the form of one or more of the types mentioned above).    They just happened to try the candy boards in one of the coldest most brutal winters we had a few years back.    They were surprised to see the bees up on the candy boards consuming the sugar, when there were frames of capped honey to either side of the cluster, not more than a few inches away.     Rightly or wrongly, they believe the candy board or the other forms of supplemental food source saved those colonies from starvation until the weather improved.

Steve Petrilli, Central Illinois

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