Chalk Brood

[Busybee]

Over several years i have had intermittent cases of chalk brood and tried different potions and remedies but have found re queening to be the only satisfactory remedy. When reading up on chalk brood i have found that early books on beekeeping 1930's and 1940's seem to imply that you are unlikely to come across chalk brood. Has chalk brood become more preverlant and if so why is this. I thought maybe importation of bees but this cannot be the case as they were imported in great numbers following Isle of Wight Disease. Interested in your thoughts and opinions.

 

[VEG]

Bee inspectors in Wales have reported higher than usual cases this year, could be to do with the crap weather this year.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I had it for the first time this year. Weather was to blame I suspect in some hives, apart from one queen that was replaced where the chalkbrood was particularly bad.

 

[REDWOOD]

I was told that the primary cause this year for the amount of chalk brood is the damp conditions but don't know of any scientific evidence to back this up

 

[Poly Hive]

A great deal of beekeeping is non scientific as there has been very little real scientific work done in the Uk for decades due to lack of interest from HMG.

Which is where so many who want a "right" answer come unstuck as what is right on Continental Europe or North America may well not be right for here.

The usual work around for chalk brood is indeed a change of queen.

PH

 

[Nic Rhodes]

see how you get on next year, this year has been 'unusual'. If you still have chalk brood, re queen but you may find you don't

 

[Finman]

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I had difficult chalk brood 10 years. It was worse in Italian bees than in Carniolans.

I read from internet researches and concluded that only way is to change my apiary gene pool. I byed queen from different places .

First year when I reared queens, I must kill half of mated virgins because brood got disease. It is drones too which transfer disease sensitive genes.

After 2 years results begun to emerge. I had spare queens so much that I changed at once the queen if I saw signs of disease.

My mating hives were contaminated with chalkbrood that brood of new queens go at once to the test of resistancy.


Now 10 years have gone and the hives are almost free from disease. If one case appears in a year, it will changed at once.

One special thing is that drone brood area is sensitive to disease. Now drone brood are very even and no porous outlook.


I put the new queen on sick combs. If it is resistant, new larvae will be ok even if the hive is contaminated.

The disease appears when brood catch cold.

The disease does not come from humidity. Humidity is high when it is rainy weathers. It means cold and activity is poor in hives.
Duriong bad weathers much workers may die and they are not able to take best care of their brood.


Yes. It is difficult. Queen sellers advertoise "chalk brood disease free queens" even if they have it.


This summer was quite bad but I have found only minor signs of disease.

 

[Finman]

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When I started strong selection, I had two splended hives. I took daughters from them.

My "premium" queen's daughters 80% got the diseases, even if the mother hive had no disease. Another got only 20%.

When chalkbrood was in control after 4 years, then I found that the apiary was sentitive to nosema. Then I took virgins from new queens which clearly had better resistancy to nosema. Then I got swarmy genepool.

But swarmy is smaller nuisance than nosema or chalkbrood.
I have found too that swarmy comes from hybrid vigour.

Only way to see the status of my own queens is to bye queen from prpofessionals and compare them to my own hives.

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[Busybee]

I have found so far that black bodied bees (Mellifera Mellifera ?) have been the most susceptible to chalk brood and as you say replacing queen has cured chalk brood very quickly. At present i am trying a line of buckfast bees which so far do not seem affected. Why is chalk brood more common now than 60 years ago ?.

 

[Poly Hive]

Probably because communications are so much easier.

PH

 

[drstitson]

now we can all hear of a case of EFB within hours. 60 years ago ?

 

[Finman]

Why is chalk brood more common now than 60 years ago ?.

Yes it is. When I started to read internet, it was said everywhere that it does not kill hives. It was not a bad thing.

No it said that it is serious disease and makes big honey yield losses.

It is known that varroa has made it dangerous. Chalkbrood was unknown in South Africa, but when varroa arrived, chalk brood became a problem.

My chalk brood bursted 22 years ago when I started to feed hives with byed pollen+honey patty. It was treamendous.
Larva deads dimished 90% when I shut the upper entrance. Before that I thought that mummies were mouldy pollen tubes. I have had them all the time.

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[Busybee]

Polyhive and Drstitson i can fully appreciate your idea that faster communications maybe makes Chalk brood appear more common than maybe 60 years ago, but as the information regarding this is generally obtained from books i think all information would have been readily available. Also 60 years ago there were more small time bee keepers than now. I am also of the view that maybe chalk brood although fungal may have a greater occurrance due to varroa damage or infestation. Although we hear a great deal about global warming, even 60 years ago the weather could be just as problematic as it is now leading to damp conditions.

 

[Finman]

Polyhive and Drstitson i can fully appreciate your idea that faster communications maybe makes Chalk brood appear more common than maybe 60 years ago, but as the information regarding this is generally obtained from books i think all information would have been readily available. .

I started 50 years ago with cross blooded German Black mongrels.

I remember how brood area was mostly like shooted with shot gun.
Lots of empty cells in the middle of brood.

There were chalk brood, EFB and what ever but I did not understand much about diseases. It did not bothered much other beekeeprs either.
Bees were more or less wild and no one breeded those mongrels or German Blacks.

If the hive died, it got sooner or later a new swarm and life continued.

2 hive owners were a huge number and they did not nurse much their hives.
Then varroa came and put an end to that hippi style.

It is impossible to compare what was 60 years ago and what is now.
And if we know something, what is the value of that knowledge. It is zero.

 

[betterbee]

chalk brood

had 1 hive with severe chalkbrood.sprayed the frames of bees with hive alive as per instructions,over 3 week period cleared up infestation completely.one off result,,i dont know but i will be using it again

 

[alanf]

If I recall what the RBI said earlier in the year: they have seen a lot of sacbrood and chalkbrood this year. The suggestion was that it's because bad weather has prevented the removal of infected brood, which has lead to higher infection rates than in other years.

That doesn't explain why levels of chalkbrood in particular over recent years might be higher than 60 years ago. It does illustrate that it's always present at a low level, but not usually a problem for healthy bees. When a hive isn't thriving, perhaps because of other infections that were not around years ago such as varroa and Nosema ceranae, then it's an opportunity for low level infections to become more prominent among a weaker population. In a similar way, the strategy that most of the books recommend, that is re-queening, might have as much of an effect through introducing a healthy queen and taking the colony through a brood break than it does through any genetic resistance.

I'm not claiming this is backed by extensive research because I'm not aware of any. It's really only speculation, albeit by people whose job is to seek out bee disease.

 

[Finno]

Been keeping bees since 1982 and never saw chalk brood until after varroa arrived in my area in 2000 - maybe only a coincidence.
P F

 

[Poly Hive]

I would call that co-incidence.

I have seen chalk off and on since 1998

PH

 

[Finman]

had 1 hive with severe chalkbrood.sprayed the frames of bees with hive alive as per instructions,over 3 week period cleared up infestation completely.one off result,,i dont know but i will be using it again

The disease is bad in spring and when weathers become warm, it disapears.
The harm is that build up is slow when part of larvae die. Then later enlargening brood eates surplus honey.

The hive becomes too late ready to forage normal yield.

So what ever you spray, it seems heal the hive. It is summer what heals.

 

[Poly Hive]

Chalk brood was "discovered" in 1911.

http://www.ibra.org.uk/articles/Occurrence-and-distribution-of-chalk-brood-disease-of-honeybees

No doubt it was "undiscovered" until then but present. Also reported in 1878 btw.


PH