chalk brood

[Finman]

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What Australia says about chalkbrood

http://beeaware.org.au/archive-pest/chalkbrood/#ad-image-0
Chalkbrood disease is present throughout most of Australia and its incidence is generally higher when a colony is subject to temperature changes, particularly cooler weather, or other sources of stress.

Actually Auistralia does not know (the author) what to do with chalkbrood.

I read 15 years ago from MAAREC's disease booklet, that only way is change genes in apiary. And then I started change operation.

Australia knows hygienic queens but it does not know that there are immune stoks of bees. Two different things.

Well..... Most of Finnish beekeepers met serious problems with chalkbrood when varroa arrived. It is stronly varroa driven. Then guys have selected and bred queens so that it is OK now.

But if I buy new queens, I may get chalkbrood queens. But it is only a part of business. I squeze the queen and

My secret weapon is that I have spare queens in spring, and I change the queen if the colony has chalk brood mummies. And I change again, if the new is not immune.'
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I think that varroa has pushed the chalkbrood to so serious level that you must do something to it.
.If the disease is mild, just live with it.

I remember that I had those mummies 50 years ago but thought that they are moulded pollen. Then the diesease bursted totally out 1990 when I started patty feeding.

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[MuswellMetro]

There is a lot of lore around chalkbrood. If you prefer research rather than lore you will find some answers here .
http://www.uco.es/dptos/zoologia/Ap...mperature_and_climate _chalkbrood_disease.pdf

you will note that temperature is the biggest factor... try adding insulation to allw better temperature regulation by the bees I see Tasmania is quite cool in winter.

other reference:
Flores, J.M., Gutiérrez, I. & Espejo, R., 2010. The role of pollen in chalkbrood disease in Apis mellifera: transmission and predisposing conditions. Mycologia, 97(6), pp.1171–1176.

Flores, J.M., Gutierrez, I. & Puerta, F., 2004. A comparison of methods to experimentally induce chalk brood disease in honey bees. Spanish journal of agricultural research, 2(1), pp.79–83.
Flores, J.M. et al., 1996. Effect of temperature and humidity of sealed brood on chalkbrood development under controlled conditions. Apidologie, 27, pp.185–192.

Derek, i totally agree, if you remeber you have been to Barnet and the training hives are behind the stable club house that you gave your talk to us in

the 8 training hive are NE facing ,shaded by the building and the trees suffered chalk brood every year without fail. the apiary manager re queened, vented to reduce carbon dioxide,shook swarmed, acid fumigation of comb but all failed...chalk brood retruned every year and yirld where low

we took over the training hives in the height of further chalk brood outbreak. But my beekeeping methods is to insulated the roofs and I introduced a few polyhives.......chalk brood vanished in 6 weeks and we have seen only perhaps half a dozen chalk mummies in 6 years, i know it only anecdotal but you appear to be right AGAIN....540lbs of honey from 6 hives ( we ran out of jars!!)

 

[Finman]

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Another advice from Australia
https://www.daf.qld.gov.au/animal-industries/bees/diseases-and-pests/chalkbrood

Use of disease-resistant bees
Some hives are more affected with chalkbrood than others. Most of this variation in susceptibility is due to differences in the ability of bees to uncap and remove diseased brood. By selecting queen bees or obtaining queen bees from hives that show resistance to this disease, the effects of chalkbrood can be reduced.


PS: It seems that most of beekeepers know the "change queen thing" but they do not believe it and they are afraid to write it. No personal experience I think.

 

[Finman]

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Difference between immune and hygienic stock.

If you get a laying immune queen and you put it into very sick hive, where half of brood has died, after two weeks you have do not have any more sick brood.

The larvae are immune.

If you have hygienic stock, you must first get new bees. It takes 4 weeks. The they start to move sick brood out.


The difference is

Immune: no sick larvae any more

Hygienic: they move sick larvae out.

......Very difficult to undestand.

 

[Swarm]

Hello there,
New to your forum, looking for advice.
I'm in Tasmania and having hassels with Chalkbrood.
It seems to be quite a problem here. I have followed all sorts of advice with no improvement.
I have been applying Canesten cream, available from chemists to treat fungal infections on intimate places on humans, to the landing board. After 3 weeks I seem to have beaten the blighter. May be a fluke but looking for info from others concerning this treatment.
Roger

Interesting info Roger. I'll mention it to my son-in-law, his operation is near Tamworth.
He tried a piece of banana skin and the chalk brood was sorted. Told me he was sceptical but couldn't argue with the result.

 

[Finman]

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Method from Australia

Without doubt the strangest ‘cure’ for chalkbrood is to slice a banana lengthways and place it on the brood frames. Not surprisingly, no one knows how this works, but there are those beekeepers who swear by the results.

http://www.--------.com.au/2016/09/03/chalkbrood/

 

[REDWOOD]

Alarm pheromones ?

 

[Finman]

Alarm pheromones ?

Interesting and odd

http://cannaroma.com/bees-and-bananas/

http://beespoke.info/2016/09/13/chalkbrood-and-the-banana-thing/

 

[Little John]

I'm a bit out of the loop on this one, as I live in what must be one of the dampest micro-climates in the world, and yet I've never had a chalkbrood problem.

I hear what you guys are saying about changing queens to change genetics - but something about this doesn't make any sense to me. After all, Chalkbrood is caused by a fungus, and that fungus has to come from somewhere ... So from where is it originating ?

Talk of it being caused by passing combs around made me wonder whether it could - possibly - be passed-on through the wax itself (rather than just 'on' the wax), and so I did a Google for the 'kill' temperature of the spores (viz-a-viz the melting of wax to make foundation etc.) - but without success.

However, I did come up with something even better:

Abstract

Chalkbrood disease in honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) is caused by an infection with Ascosphaera apis. Disease expression requires the consumption of fungal spores and a predisposing condition in the susceptible brood. A. apis spores within sheets of wax foundation could be a source of inoculum leading to chalkbrood, but it is also possible that these spores remain confined in the wax and do not contribute to disease. We have resolved this topic by chilling susceptible brood within wax combs built on contaminated foundation (using treatments of spores from 1 mummy and spores from 10 mummies) versus uncontaminated foundation. We found significantly higher levels of chalkbrood in brood exposed to the higher dosage. Our results demonstrate that foundation wax contaminated with spores of A. apis spores may be a source of chalkbrood in honeybee colonies.

Spores of Ascosphaera apis contained in wax foundation can infect honeybee brood. Flores JM, Spivak M, Gutiérrez I. Vet Microbiol. 2005 Jun 15;108(1-2):141-4. Epub 2005 Apr 26.

So - if you're buying commercially-made foundation - that might well be a source. And would also explain why I haven't seen Chalkbrood here, as I've never used foundation.
LJ

 

[Hivemaker.]

It's too simple a test to find good stock. If you're raising your own queens, learn how to test for hygienic trait...liquid nitrogen method.

Standard methods for fungal brood disease research.

Breeding for resistance
Gilliam et al., (1983) and Taber (1986) demonstrated that it is possible to select and breed honey bees for resistance to chalkbrood disease. Spivak and Reuter (2001) demonstrated that colonies selected for rapid removal of freeze-killed brood showed resistance to chalkbrood in field experiments. Palacio et al. (2000) observed that hygienic colonies had a lower frequency of brood diseases including chalkbrood. Commercial queen breeders in the US and Denmark have found that if they have “zero-tolerance” for chalkbrood; i.e. they never raise queens from a colony that has had clinical symptoms of chalkbrood and they simultaneously select for rapid hygienic behaviour then they get rather chalkbrood resistant lines

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3816652/

 

[Finman]

I


So - if you're buying commercially-made foundation - that might well be a source. .
LJ

Everybody is buying such foundations.

It is a special disease of honey bee.

How it can spread:

- empty wild hives

- feeding uncappig wax honey

- via wax melter

- via robbing

- you catch a swarm

- bees visit in a dead hive

- bees visit in empty comb store

- drones have free acces to other hives

- foraging bees have acces to other hives (drifting)

- open feeding

- cleaning what ever beekeeping stuff outside

- even imported honey jar, if you do not have native chalkbrood.



It has noticed with researching, that chalkbrood become more usual when varroa arrived.'

South Africa did not have chalkbrood before varroa arrived.

 

[Finman]

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Where else chalkbrood exists

* Chalk brood is a fungal disease, believed to be
caused by Ascosphaera proliperda Skou (Thomas and
Poinar, 19734, which has become a severe problem
in the alfalfa leafcutting bee, Megachile pacifica, in the
last 4 years. It is most severe in the western United
States and in a population introduced into Argentina
where losses range from 20 to 65 percent.

* found in bumblebee too

 

[Little John]

Everybody is buying such foundations.

No - not everybody.
LJ

 

[Beefriendly]

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Where else chalkbrood exists

* Chalk brood is a fungal disease, believed to be
caused by Ascosphaera proliperda Skou (Thomas and
Poinar, 19734, which has become a severe problem
in the alfalfa leafcutting bee, Megachile pacifica, in the
last 4 years. It is most severe in the western United
States and in a population introduced into Argentina
where losses range from 20 to 65 percent.

* found in bumblebee too

In the UK it's thought to be caused by Ascophaera apis
Bailey-Honey Bee Pathology.
Must have a different strain in the alfalfa districts.

 

[Hivemaker.]

don't share infected combs between colonies

I have done just that and found it makes no difference, chalk brood combs into colonies with no chalk brood, and they cleaned the combs, but did not go down with chalk brood, have also replaced chalk colonies with complete sets of new clean combs, made no difference, they still had chalk brood, even sprayed chalk bees with treatment, chalk always returned after a while.
Also switched queens from chalk colonies to ones without, they then got chalk brood... while the chalk in the colonies they came from cleared up with the switched queen. Not seen much chalk brood for several years now since culling any queens in colonies that had chalk.

 

[Finman]

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But, I have tested my chalkbrood resistance in mating nucs 15 years.
What I need is old rubbish and chalk mummy dust on the nuc floor.

I keep so long that I can see, does the queen has problems with disease and is it offensive

Chalkbrood shows itself in 2 weeks when laying starts

Mating nucs are usually chilly, lack of bees and disease appers easily.

EFB shows too itself. It is too qene changing thing

 

[Finman]

Not seen much chalk brood for several years now since culling any queens in colonies that had chalk.

That is the way it goes. What you need is extra queens in spring. imported queens do well too.

 

[Madge]

I have done just that and found it makes no difference ...

Interesting. So, keep colonies strong, and change the queen ...

 

[Beefriendly]

Interesting. So, keep colonies strong, and change the queen ...

Perhaps more accurately change the queen to a queen from a line known to NOT show any chalkbrood.

 

[Finman]

Interesting. So, keep colonies strong, and change the queen ...

Once I bought 2 queens, which layed 8 and 9 box hives. Huge amount of chalkbrood. Nothing to do with "strong hives". And queen seller advertised them "resistant".


Chalkbrood hives use to become strong when sun heals the disease.
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