Advice please. Chalk brood.

[meidel]

- 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.

.

.

Without doubt, it wasn't mine so I don't know for certain what the beekeeper might have done wrong - but it certainly didn't inspire confidence. I'm sticking to my OMF wooden hives and P*ynes poly nucs with built-in OMF

 

[Finman]

Without doubt, it wasn't mine so I don't know for certain what the beekeeper might have done wrong - but it certainly didn't inspire confidence. I'm sticking to my OMF wooden hives and P*ynes poly nucs with built-in OMF

you do what you
do.

I use finger tip size entrance in my nucs. Ventilation is enought to 4 frame colony.
It is quite nonsense to use OMF floor in nucs.

.but you have your "collective national truth". Go for it!

.

 

[Finman]

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),

cold rainy weathers in the middle of summer encourages chalk brood.
During good weeks brood area enlarges. Then come rainy weeks and hives loose lots of bees. They have difficulties to keep brood area warm.
You surely understand that open floor does not help the colony in this emergency.

.

 

[Into the lions den]

You surely understand that open floor does not help the colony in this emergency.
.

That will be why my colonies in wooden hives with solid floors and 9mm entrance slots have chalkbrood worse than those on OMF' s then?

Its not so simple an answer. Yes, broodnest area struggling to keep warm enough is one factor, but lack of fresh air is another. Not enough of it and the chalk gets worse.

 

[masterBK]

Prof Len Heath & Barbara Gaze Dec 1987 Journal of apicultural research vol26(4) pages 243-246 showed that carbon dioxide is the major trigger for activation of the spores of Ascophaera apis (the fungus that brings about chalkbrood). Thats why if you increase the ventilation by switching from solid to OMF you reduce the buildup of carbon dioxide (waste product of respiration) and so reduce the problem. This has been known for years just ask anyone with the NDB

 

[Woeski]

Check that the roof doesn't leak.
Water settling on the roof may be entering through poorly cut roof plate.
Duck tape is a wonderful thing.

 

[Finman]

That will be why my colonies in wooden hives with solid floors and 9mm entrance slots have chalkbrood worse than those on OMF' s then?

Its not so simple an answer. Yes, broodnest area struggling to keep warm enough is one factor, but lack of fresh air is another. Not enough of it and the chalk gets worse.

what in this world or in this forum s simple?

yes but the basic is how sensitive bee strain or genepool is to chalkbrood. It is really misunderstanding if you think the bottom board type has something to do with disease.


I studied from internet what chalkbrood is. Then I start to select systematically queens which did not show signs of disease. I kept my mating nucs dirty that brood get contamination at once.

Of course first I must get new blood to my genepool.

The last sign was that drone brood comb was sporous. I read from Etiopian research that there chalk brood existed only in drone brood. Then I start to kill queens which drone brood area was not healthy.

Now my yard has been clean several years and if I see signs of chalkbrood, the queen flyes its final flight very soon. Strange is that drone brood areas are very even. No holes.

You may listen to me or not. Problem is not mine.

.ugh! I have spoken.

 

[Finman]

Prof Len Heath & Barbara Gaze Dec 1987 Journal of apicultural research vol26(4) pages 243-246 showed that carbon dioxide is the major trigger for activation of the spores of Ascophaera apis (the fungus that brings about chalkbrood). Thats why if you increase the ventilation by switching from solid to OMF you reduce the buildup of carbon dioxide (waste product of respiration) and so reduce the problem. This has been known for years just ask anyone with the NDB

that is really wrong knowledge. You must find newer researches.

The disease burst in healthy frame if you keep it too long out of hive. Brood catch cold and then it begings.
So you may find the disease is only in one frame.

When the disease busted first time in my hives it was just awfull. Handfull of mummies on floor and in every hive.

Amount of mummies dropped 90% when I shut the upper entrance. That was in early spring.


It is big difference in what circumtancies the research has been done. In Filippines, in Uk, California, Canada
And so on


But UK you have special treatmenst to all difficult cases

- shake bees
-feed bees
- ventilate ventilate ventilate.

These are panic actions.


.I do not respect either professional beekeepers. They sell chalk brood sensitive queens. I have found it. like one said: " we have not time to test them" but they have balls to advertise "chalk brood resistant queens".

.

 

[Poly Hive]

I have the greatest respect for most professional beekeepers. They put their livelihoods on the line, not just lines on a forum.

And a great deal less for some non professionals.

PH

 

[Finman]

.
I remember an Canadian research where an university started to test mesh floor, how much mesh reduce mite load in hives. You know a story how mites drop through the mesh and cannot climp to the hive again....

Hives got so bad chalk brood that they took a new goal: save the hives!

The report was: nothing good to say about mesh floor.

*****

what I think is that the bee stock was sensitive to chalk brood and cold weather exploded the disease.

Hxxxxxxxxxxx


In South Africa chalk brood was almost unknown disease, but after varroa arrival it became a nuisance.

 

[Andy Duff]

Does anybody have the phone number for the United Nations peace keeping force?

 

[Finman]

.
I have Putin's number if it helps

 

[enrico]

Do you know what coincidence is finman? It is adding a solid floor and chalk brood disappearing!

 

[masterBK]

There are many variable factors involved with chalk brood. The fungal spores are probably ever present in most hives so there are factors that activate the fungus like CO2 concentration, environmental factors that make the larvae more vulnerable to infection like a drop in brood nest temperature, behavioural whereby some strains of bee allow the brood temperature to fluctuate more than other strains and genetic (at least three gene loci are involved) which result in some inbred genetic lines (eg the Irish black bees from a well known Q breeder) being very susceptible to chalk brood

So Finman is partly right but not completely right. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air so will mainly exit via OMF rather than through an opening in the crownboard. Thus if you insulate the top of the hive the CO2 will exit through the floor without the temperature falling too much (hot air rises not falls) . I used to get chalkbrood in my colonies but since I switched to OMF have rarely seen it (not a single case this year) Maybe thats coincidence too?

Finman: Just because research was done a few years ago doesn't mean the conclusions were wrong. Len Heath spent many many years doing ground breaking research on chalkbrood and I doubt if many knew more than he did regarding this fungus.

 

[Finman]

Do you know what coincidence is finman? It is adding a solid floor and chalk brood disappearing!

I am master of science in biology from Helsinki University and
I have kept bees 50 years.

But I do not know, Mr Enrico, what coincidence is.

 

[Finman]

There are many variable factors involved with chalk brood. The fungal spores are probably ever present in most hives so there are factors that activate the fungus like CO2 concentration, environmental factors that make the larvae more vulnerable to infection like a drop in brood nest temperature, behavioural whereby some strains of bee allow the brood temperature to fluctuate more than other strains and genetic (at least three gene loci are involved) which result in some inbred genetic lines (eg the Irish black bees from a well known Q breeder) being very susceptible to chalk brood

So Finman is partly right but not completely right. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air so will mainly exit via OMF rather than through an opening in the crownboard. Thus if you insulate the top of the hive the CO2 will exit through the floor without the temperature falling too much (hot air rises not falls) . I used to get chalkbrood in my colonies but since I switched to OMF have rarely seen it (not a single case this year) Maybe thats coincidence too?

Finman: Just because research was done a few years ago doesn't mean the conclusions were wrong. Len Heath spent many many years doing ground breaking research on chalkbrood and I doubt if many knew more than he did regarding this fungus.

oK. And you are going to knock out chalkbrood with that knowledge. That it what we have needed all the time.

.mesh floors have become more usual with varroa and during last 10 years chalk brood has become serious disease. It is said too that varroa and chalkbrood has coincidence.

20 years ago reports said that "chalkbrood does not kill hives" and that's it.. Now comments are that "it makes serious fall of the honey yields".

Xxxxxxxx

i have solid floors and I keep my hive ventilation in minimum.
I have not chalkbrood because I have used my genetic understanding in the battle against the disease.

Like with EFB YOU SHOULD USE YOUR GENETIG KLOWLEDGE in contolling the disesease.
Instead of that you burn your hives.

When you are mad in using mesh foor in Britain, you shoud not have chalkbrood there.

But go for it.

I have told what I know about that disease contol. But your are better try first something humbug.

.

 

[Poly Hive]

0000000000000000000000'd.

PH

 

[Into the lions den]

Like with EFB YOU SHOULD USE YOUR GENETIG KLOWLEDGE in contolling the disesease.
Instead of that you burn your hives.

Not the issue under discussion. Besides, that policy is for HEAVY infections only, AND its only the infected combs that get burned, not the entire hive. since the big EFB outbreak of 2009 we voluntarily practiced a 'no mercy' policy, and have reduced our incidence to below national background level in only three years. As it is there we can never relax about it again, but we have it under control.

When you are mad in using mesh foor in Britain, you shoud not have chalkbrood there.

Get proper information before firing off like that! Mesh floors are still in the minority in wooden hives in this country, although pretty well universal in poly hives. The very very bad chalk I have seen, in the units of others and occasionally my my own, have ALL (bar one) been on hives with solid floors and smaller entrances ( many commercials use the entrance size all year that is too small for mouse entry, not the deep entrance normally found in National hives.) The one bad incidence *I* have had of the problem on hives with mesh floors was undoubtedly due to microclimate at the apiary location. Of course genetics have a role to play in it, even in the bad group some colonies had none, but the point is, susceptible stock or not, a change of microclimate alleviated the problem.

But go for it.

We will. Seems like yet another example of the differences between the UK and Finland, caused largely by our damp maritime climate as opposed to Finlands relatively continental type with its greater extremes.We are on a programme of slowly changing everything onto mesh floors. Why? Because it works. I do not care about the mechanics of why it works, just that it DOES. Honey in the tank at year end is the ultimate measure of both bee and beekeeper welfare.

I have told what I know about that disease contol. But your are better try first something humbug.

Its only humbug if its wrong. Its not wrong. It might not be 100% right either. With chalkbrood you cannot just pin it on one factor. Its multi factoral and they all interact. Single line theories are great, and have heard most of them, and experimented many times. Genetics AND microclimate interact with eachother, and the worst microclimate is cool and damp with poor air drainage, both internally in the hive and in the apiary location.

.

..

 

[oliver90owner]

And this all arose because some just wanted to rubbish my advice of getting rid of the damp festering detritus build-up just below the brood nest where the bees could not access it (to clear it away).

Clearly a case of trying to be clever but actually being exactly the opposite - and then attempting to divert the discussion claiming 100% knowledge of a problem that likely did not exist.

This clearly demonstrates something.

 

[Poly Hive]

Ah but ITLD its nothing to do with our climate, I know this as I have had the discussion with our foreign friends from balmy climates for over ten years. The answer is always the same, we know nothing.

PH