Chalk brood & remaining honey

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tobbias88

New Bee
Joined
Sep 7, 2011
Messages
21
Reaction score
0
Location
Omagh N. Ireland
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
4
Last autumn one hive was suffering from chalk brood but a friend said leave hive alone & bees will sort it out. So took his advice & closed them for winter.

This spring on opening found that all bees had perished because of damp, poor ventilation - my fault no doubt. Sadly the brood box is packed with honey & dead bees.

During sunny days I noticed neighboring bees (mine) had started robbing it & taking the honey. Thought this might spread the disease so sealed it again.

My question is what can I do with this brood box full of honey comb? is it safe to allow other bees to take it? If not should I burn the lot? (The combs I mean not the brood box.) Perhaps I should give it to local badger colony?
 
Close the hive to stop any robbing, then extract the capped honey and eat it.
 
I would use it, if for nothing else for cooking, but it should be fine to eat!
E
 
This spring on opening found that all bees had perished because of damp, poor ventilation - my fault no doubt. Sadly the brood box is packed with honey & dead bees.

On a different note - why do you think bees died due to damp?
 
Hive type? floor type? Entrance block?

Just doe a quick search on Beebase and oddly apart from four pics of a VERY heavy infestation there is not an advisory leaflet.

Australia thinks it can be infectious for 15 years which I must admit I was taken aback at as... When I had poly floors with wire mesh on picking up hives to take to OSR sometimes I would hear the mummies rolling about the mesh, a quite distinctive sound. On moving from the OSR site which also was a summer site, to Heather there was no sound at all. So during the summer the mummies were thrown out and apparently not replaced wish indicates the infection was at the least paused if not cured. Oddly it was worse after a dreary winter, as in lots of cold and wet. After a drier winter not nearly so obvious. So Stress is I suggest a major influence.

PH
 
[snip]
So Stress is I suggest a major influence.

PH

I definitely agree.
Coming from the aquarium hobby, when a fish gets sick the first thing that one always looks for is causes for stress: water parameters, temperature, maybe another fish has started bullying it, or any other reason, and often removing the cause of stress is enough for the fish to recover by itself.

I suppose very much the same applies to wild animals like bees.
 
I had a super on top filled with straw ( to keep warm) and feeder holes cover with newspaper with only a small ventilation space. This seems to have become blocked or else rain got in - straw & super sides were wet. Full Combs look mouldy. I really don't feel like eating it.
[It is National with solid floor but entrance open]
 
I'm not sure what exactly causes it but when I had it in one hive the only way to completely get rid was to re queen. That was four years ago and I haven't seen it since.
 
The classic answer. Which in turn seems to say it is a genetic weakness.

PH
 
I had a super on top filled with straw ( to keep warm) and feeder holes cover with newspaper with only a small ventilation space. This seems to have become blocked or else rain got in - straw & super sides were wet. Full Combs look mouldy. I really don't feel like eating it.
[It is National with solid floor but entrance open]
That sounds suspiciously like a Warre quilt box which does get damp on top due to condensation, but which remains dry otherwise. However, the Warre has a different roof assembly to other hives, so I wonder if that box of straw as the issue?
 
I had a super on top filled with straw ( to keep warm) and feeder holes cover with newspaper with only a small ventilation space.

You didn't need any ventilation space - feeder holes should have been properly blocked. I don't know how your bees died (can't be certain without seeing how bad the chalkbrood was but I doubt that was the cause) doubt we'll ever find out - but any deadout hive will attract damp and mould - it's the live bees inside which controls the atmosphere.
 

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