Feeding fondant from below ?

[DRam]

I have seen a lot of posts about feeding fondant through the holes in a crown board, or laying it on top of the frames, and I have also read posts about stores being too far away from the cluster and bees staving even though there were ample stores in the hive, which brings me to my question, does anybody feed fondant in trays below the frames by sitting then on top of the open mesh floor.

There is probably a very good reason why this isn't done, if so I'll learn something new, but my thinking was that if I could use a camera to look into the hive from below the OMF, I could move a tray or trays round the OMF to keep them below the cluster and near the bees. The obvious downside would be that stuff and dead bees would fall on to the trays, but it would be fairly easy and not too disruptive to check this and empty/replenish the tray through the entrance block.

My second question is, is it possible to over feed the colony with fondant. I was told that this was possible with syrup in the spring as the bees could take up too much frame area with stores and not leave enough room for brood, is this also a risk with fondant.

Thanks in advance for your answers.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

By the time the bees possibly need fondant they will be clustered at the warmest point of the hive (just under the crown board) they won't find the fondant if it's left down on the floor which is just a dumping ground for rubbish in the winter.
Bees can store fondant just as readily as syrup but in the spring tend to just look on it as a ready food source not an opportunity to store.

 

[Amari]

If you placed fondant on the OMF in autumn it would attract wasps and robbing bees. In winter the bees would find it too cold to move downwards to retrieve it - heat (the warmth they create by muscle vibration) rises, so feed should be above the cluster..

 

[oliver90owner]

JBM is correct - would you like your food stored openly where all sorts of rubbish would fall over it? I don’t suppose the bees are any different as they never place their stores under the nest (protection from robbers is another obvious reason, of course).

Would you consider feeding syrup from below?

 

[rolande]

@DRam, although discussing miniplus hives, there was a thread which touched on this subject a little while ago. Hivemaker's post says it all.

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/its-cold-in-them-thar-little-hives.15721/