Advice please. Chalk brood.

[waverider]

The badly behaved colony that I acquired this year from Cornwall is showing signs of Chalk Brood. Noticed 3 mummified brood on the hive floor and 4 on one frame in the central region of the brood box.

From what I have read it is advised to re-queen and transfer to a new brood box with frames and foundation.

The problem is the timing. I guess its too late in the year to introduce new frame/foundation. Now in Autumn is introducing a new queen risky? Needs to be laying asap and not be annihilated by my evil Cornish bee's.

Would it be wise to see how they get on without any intervention then possibly re-queen etc in Spring.

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[susbees]

Consider where the hive is situated and whether it has sensible ventilation. Damp, stagnant air is best avoided.

 

[waverider]

Its sited in the corner of my sisters garden not too close to the fence line. Slightly shaded by a large tree and a lot of nettle growth. Lawn grass is rather long Would this contribute to the dampness of the hive?

 

[MuswellMetro]

variuos proprietry treatments, but cant say if they works as never used them

Three bits of chalk brood on the floors is not a problem....but if it looks like a pile of gravel on the floor then change the queen.....100s of chalk brood not 3

as previous post, increase ventilation and get rid of damp, you could also try insulation on the roof , leaving the varroa board out and cutting any long grass under the hive

 

[Poly Hive]

That is very low level.

As per MM.

PH

 

[waverider]

Thanks for the feedback. Will cut back the long grass and remove the pull-out floor. I assume the floor will need to be replaced come October.

 

[oliver90owner]

remove the pull-out floor

If you are running an OMF with a board underneath, remove it! It will simply be a resevoir for potentially damp and soggy detritus, along with being a haven for all sorts of fauna, moulds and likely pathogens. Somewhere, where the bees have no chance of keeping the hive clean.

 

[bees4u]

Years ago an old bee farmer said to me to sprinkle salt on the top bars to get rid of Chalk brood and it works but don't ask me how!

 

[enrico]

Waverider you are worrying needlessly. You do need to remove the foor though. It should only be put in for short periods to test for varroa and during treatment. Small amounts of chalk brood occurr from time to time, also at this time of the year your bees may destroy brood and leave it outside, usually drone that they no longer need but also to make space or winter stores.
The best thing you can do is cut the grass! Give them a bit of fresh air!
E

 

[AndyTh]

I heard the same tip from an old beekeeper last year - salt sprinkled on the top bars of the broodbox frames to help clear up chalkbrood. He'd learned this in Germany and thought it worked by inducing the bees to do more diligent housekeeping.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Thanks for the feedback. Will cut back the long grass and remove the pull-out floor. I assume the floor will need to be replaced come October.

NO, i have my floors out all year except the days i monitor ( 3 days each months March to October) and aslo with apiguard on

but insulate the roof with 2" or 4~" of wall/loft insulation Oct to March

i also don't used matcvh sticks but rely on the open mesh

see the work on ventilation/insulation by B Mobus Beekeeping Annuals 1964-1969

 

[Poly Hive]

I am contacting the College MM to see if they managed to keep anything at all of the Craibstone research. idiots..

PH

 

[Finman]

remove the pull-out floor

If you are running an OMF with a board underneath, remove it! It will simply be a resevoir for potentially damp and soggy detritus, along with being a haven for all sorts of fauna, moulds and likely pathogens. Somewhere, where the bees have no chance of keeping the hive clean.

That is totally wrong advice. Adding cold adds chalkbrood too.

But bottom should not be so that bees cannot clean it.

 

[Finman]

.
I had 10 years very bad chalk brood. i returned to Italians from Carniolans and disease turned worse.

It took me 3 years to breed a chalk brood resistant bee yard. When I see disease now, I change the queen.

Like Poly says, this contamination is minimum. You nee not do anything.

.but do not add ventilation.

 

[Into the lions den]

Almost all colonies, especially darker types, will show chalk brood in minor amounts at some stage during the season. In mild cases it comes and goes, tending to manifest itself more in cool damp conditions.

A total of 7 cells (4 active and 3 on the floor) is nothing, would virtually count as chalk brood free to us. 10 times that would still be 'a touch of chalk brood'. 100 times that and it becomes to be a concerning level. Have been shown the brood combs in an apiary of a local guy, very experienced, very high reputation, and they were over 50% chalk and it was driving him nuts. By mid July you were hard pushed to recognise them as the same bees as it had declined away to almost no chalk brood and the colonies were motoring. All by itself. 2012 has been a bad year for chalk, especially in our part of the country. It affected all strain of bee, including the NZ carnies in some locations only, although the 'near Amm' were worst. Its primarily climatic and does seem to be in some way associated with the bees having a bit of a struggle to keep the brood warm enough, giving the chalk brood fungus the time and conditions to attack the larvae.

Forget all the quack treatments. I think my right hand girl Jolka has experimented with most of them, and spent more of my money than was wise at Harper Adams buying 'curative substances' to run proper experiments. None were worth the money. Most were worth nothing. ( NOTE........we are NOT referring to varroa treatments here. Proper treatment for that, other than in exceptional circumstances, is essential.)

As regards the bad chalk in the NZ carnies. This was at our Aberdeenshire unit and it was awful in one group. No idea why. Did an experiment of my own and moved them away from the very sheltered site in some ruined farm buildings where they had done well each season before to an elevated site on a hillside on the margin of an OSR field (they were on OSR in the ruins btw, so that is not a variable) and in three weeks it was down to normal levels. Makes me think good air drainage in the type of season we have had may be important.

 

[oliver90owner]

.but do not add ventilation.

In that case, you are clearly advocating solid floors as I see no alternative in your post.

So, the OP has the choice of leaving the festering disease-ridden detritus under the colony, or doing what most sensible OMF users do and allow bottom ventilation - which most do all the year round. We don't live in an ice box like some do.

Some of us really need to get into the realms of sensible practicality.

 

[meidel]

Some of us really need to get into the realms of sensible practicality.

hear hear

just to give an example - all hives and nucs in our apiary on OMF, left open apart from when monitoring varroa count, all healthy - the one ply nuc with solid floor, bees suffered from chill and mouldy frames together with chilled and chalk brood in April this year.

 

[Finman]

.but do not add ventilation.

So, the OP has the choice of leaving the festering disease-ridden detritus under the colony,


Some of us really need to get into the realms of sensible practicality.

rotten detritus on the hive floor - it cannot be explained, if someone has so.

Yes, i have seen pictures where mesh floor lays on some bottom. It difficult to bees keep clean hive then..

Hivemaker told me that he has solid floors which have slanting board. Since that I have made those. The material is difficult but now I got very sterile material to it.


But like EFB, chalk brood can be avoided with queen breeding and with strong selection.
But if you want to keep national diseases, then you keep them.


Natural diseases belong to the Natural Beekeeping (Do Nothing Beekeeping DNB), remember that.

.

 

[Finman]

hear hear
the one ply nuc with solid floor, bees suffered from chill and mouldy frames together with chilled and chalk brood in April this year.

good heavens! Do something to the floor if it is so. You have used wrong material and structure is wrong if you floor is so bad.

I use only solid floor because it it is better than mesh floor.

- moldy frames and floor. Pure nonsense. the colony is too small in the hive and condensation water keeps interrior moist.

- suffer from child. you must reduce the hive room to proper size. check ventilation too that it is proper.

.

.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I have rarely seen chalk brood - except for this year. (Light sandy soil, not a damp apiary, open mesh floors). The suggestion is to change the queen - some of the improvement may well be, in this case, by having a brood break (caged queen for a few days), which could well help. However my worst CB colony swarmed after building up very well this spring and as an experiment, that queen (not the swarm, just the queen) went into another hive that was queenless. The chalk-brood followed her into that hive which would indicate that there is a genetic susceptability to it. She has been replaced.