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Author Topic: Chalkbrood  (Read 2821 times)

Offline CB

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Chalkbrood
« on: March 02, 2015, 04:55:56 am »
Hi,
I have a few hives with severe chalkbrood and don't know what to do anymore. I have tried the following:-
Replace queen
Feed 1:1 sugar syrup (with 1:500 bleach)

Been 4 months now and every time it seems that the bees have it under control it reappears.
Ventilation is good and the hives get plenty of sun.

Any other suggestions?

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Chalkbrood
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2015, 01:33:29 pm »
Sounds like you did all of the normal things correctly.
My recommendation is to requeen again.
Jim
« Last Edit: March 02, 2015, 09:25:15 pm by sawdstmakr »
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Offline deknow

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Re: Chalkbrood
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2015, 02:14:21 pm »
1:1 will put a lot of moisture in the hive, which is exactly what you don't want.  I'd use 2:1.

Offline AR Beekeeper

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Re: Chalkbrood
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2015, 04:20:21 pm »
How high off the ground are your stands?  Are you using a solid bottom board or open mesh bottom board?  You said that you have re-queened, was it with a queen from a different line of bees?  Have you tried, as a last resort, removing and giving all the brood to one colony and then shaking the adult bees onto foundation? What have your weather conditions been?  These are the questions I was taught to answer when faced with chalk brood disease.

Try using stands that lift the hive 8 to 12 inches off the ground, if you are using open mesh bottoms close them during the cool, damp part of the day (if any), do a shake down of the adults onto foundation and feed, if the new queen was from the same queen line as the one you replaced, try to find a queen from hygienic stock.  Chalk brood usually infects brood that has been chilled during the first 24-48 hours after the egg hatches and the adult bees don't keep the young larvae as warm as they should.  The comb can hold spores, so I would try a shake down on one colony and see if it has an affect.

Offline CB

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Re: Chalkbrood
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2015, 05:02:37 am »
Hi AR Beekeeper, the hives are on concrete cinder blocks about 30 cm of the ground. Using solid bottom boards. The weather has been hot ~20 C to 35 C with humidity between 60 and 70% - not ideal conditions. I haven't tried a shakedown yet - do you suggest shaking down all bees including the queen onto new foundation?

Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Chalkbrood
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2015, 08:30:56 am »
I started to think from my observation that it was temperature related.  There is a lot of research to support this as well.  Your brood gets chilled and the chalkbrood does well at lower temps than the brood nest usually is.  I think sometimes it is genetic that they decide to expand the brood nest too far too soon and get caught not being able to keep it warm which is the reason why genetics seems to help.

Try a search on scholar.google.com for:
chalkbrood lower temperatures


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Offline AR Beekeeper

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Re: Chalkbrood
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2015, 09:02:30 am »
CB,  Yes I would start the colony over on new foundation.  I would only try one colony and see if it solves the problem.  If the problem is genetics the chalkbrood will continue, but if it is spores in the comb, a shake down should solve the problem.  You will need to feed syrup until all of the comb is drawn, if you are not in a good nectar flow now.  What do the beekeepers around you do to cure chalkbrood? 

I have not seen chalkbrood in my hives since the early 80s.  I started using queens with hygienic traits and put my colonies in full sun on stands.  I shook down all of the colonies with chalkbrood into equipment washed with bleach solution and with new foundations.  I put the comb with brood from the shaken colonies over an excluder on a few sick colonies and then treated those colonies later in the summer.  I put one frame of sealed brood from well colonies into the shaken colonies to help hold them in the new boxes, sometimes they will swarm out, but not often.  Back then I had 125 colonies and perhaps 20% of them showed chalkbrood.  The disease cleared up that year, and only appeared in 1 or 2 colonies the next year.  After that I have been clean.  I only have 15 full colonies and 30+ nucs now, but I have had no disease problems for years.