Chalk Brood and Sac Brood

[darren64]

How effective is thymol against chalkbrood?some thymol based products claim its effctive against chalkbrood and acarine.

 

[bee lady]

I have heard that the bees that clean out the dead affected larvae breathe in the spores and then are affected themselves in that they do not develop into good foragers and die early so even when the bees clean up the mess chalk brood as a negative and long term effect on the health and vigour of the hive.

 

[plain_hunt]

Chalk food can be a sign of stress, I would give them a small amount of sugar syrup to give a bit of a boost. If the frames are badly infected, I would remove those frames and give them new ones to draw it.
Sacbrood, I would again pull out the infected frames, and put in new ones for them to draw out. You may have to feed them if here's not much food about.

 

[itma]

// deleted reply to 2011 post

 

[Finman]

I don't agree it is a "temp thing". I agree conditions will trigger / aggravate the disease.

Temp thing is very essential in chalkbrood. In spring disease appears and in normal cases disappears when summer becomes warm. More or less brood have died and the build up is delayed.

Some hives keeps the disease all the time and honey yield will be poor.

If weathers are rainy and cold in the middle of summer, chalkbrood bursts again.

 

[Finman]

.
......... Cure

There is no chemical treatment against chalkbrood even if companies say so. It will be healed by itself during summer. So it seems like cure has worked.

Only way is that you buy such queens which resists the disease. Final sign is porous drone brood area. When bees gene pool is resistant, drone brood cappings are even, without holes.

When disease is under control, the silver bullet against chalkbrood is spare queens. When you see in spring chalk on the bottom of a hive, replace the queen with spare queen.