Is this a better picture? I am sorry that I don’t have better resolutions. This is a new queen, so I hope that it helps. But who knows. This is just the hive that he left for us to figure out after replacing it with a new nuc. @Peter48 I think that I am just too dumb to figure out what you mean by cycle out the old brood. So when I inspect next should I take out the 5 nuc frames with chalkbrood and add the comb frames from a non chalkbrood hive? I’m sorry, such a dumb question.
They are good photos Lindsay. I think the best you can do is every couple of days, keep cleaning the floor.
My interpretation of cycling out the frames would be to use them up in the honey super to let the brood emerge up there above the QE. Then the bees will replace it with honey. Once it’s ready to harvest the honey, do that before cutting the comb out before fitting fresh foundation. You would only do that with a strong colony that actually has a honey super in use.
In your case, I would remove just one frame at a time, the most affected frame & replace it with a good frame of brood. I say this because you can’t discard all 5 frames at the one time because you don’t have 5 good replacements. With the one frame you remove, just cut the comb out before cleaning up & sanitizing the frame before fitting fresh foundation.
You could do this once every 10-14 days, depending on how quickly the donor hive can replace the one frame of brood you took. Basically keep the donor hive at a constant strength, which should be easy seeing as you’re in spring.
cheers
PS, now that you have 2 donor hives, you might be able to remove 2 badly affected frames. Then replace them with one frame from each donor hive.
This is a fantastic learning curve for you. Every time you go in to do something, it gets easier, I hope.
How I cycle out old or diseased frames is to take an outer frame that is not in use for brood, it may have some stores in it, Then select the next frame you want to replace and move it to the outside position where the bees can emerge. Add a frame with a new frame of foundation towards the center of the brood cluster that the bees will work on making comb, so you have introduced, or cycled in, a new frame that of course is free of spores. in time it will be affected by spores but what has happened is you have weakened the amount of spores. If you have spare frames of comb that are from another hive so much the better. As you take a diseased frame out you should cut the comb out and render the wax and soak the frame in a strong beach for a couple of hours, then rinse and air dry. You can also move a frame of brood into the super to emerge before removing it - cycling it out of the hive.
Hope that explained better. Your not dumb nor is it a dumb question, your trying to understand in a new area of bee keeping.
All three hives recovered, but with about 30% of the brood dying in the frames I figure that put an addition strain on the remaining colony to remove the bodies. Obviously the bees were not strong enough in numbers to remove the mummies and in checking the brood frames mummies were still in cells. I wanted to at least feel I was helping by removing the mummies. That the three hives recovered I think it was worth the effort.
My thinking is that if you can reduce the spores in the hive the more brood will survive and so a stronger colony towards a healthy hive - am I right or wrong?
I’ve read many advise re-queening hoping for a better queen with a better hygiene toward house cleaning, but I didn’t see any difference in the hive I re-queened twice one way or the other.
Cheers
I think you are right. Higher concentration of pathogens puts more pressure on immune system. And all measures aimed to reduce this pressure should be helpful.
I simply imagined the scene with pincers and me as a main character. No, I do not have so much patience 
I believe the original essence of this advice was simply to avoid reproduction of such queen.
In theory a better queen should improve chances in general. But it is only one factor in complicated picture and I do not believe it is a guaranteed method against chalkbrood or any other disease for that matter.
I see, so take 1 good brood frame from either of my 2 other nuc hives and put it in there and sanitize the bad frames. Makes sense! Thank you!
Thank you! Yes I do have plenty of frames that have comb on them. That is something I do have haha. I have 5 deep boxes and frames that I just purchased yesterday and also have 20 other boxes with frames here that I need to work on. So I will start cycling those in. This is starting to make more sense haha! Thank you!
Thank you! I do have a lot of patience but feel too scared around them still to try and take out the brood. I don’t know. I saw a video where this guy said the best treatment was to take out all the affected brood but I have no idea how you know what is affected or not so I would screw that up for sure.
A badly affected frame would be a frame containing brood where a large percentage of the brood has the chalk brood mummies instead of healthy brood. Just inspect each frame, with bees till you find the worst affected one. Then shake the bees off that frame before putting it somewhere so that bees can’t get back to it. Then replace it with one frame of good brood from a donor hive after shaking the bees off it. Replace that frame with a fresh foundation frame. Because you are in spring, the bees should quickly build that frame & fill it with brood.
Repeat that process with the second donor hive if you feel it has a frame of brood to spare.
I like that it’s all making sense for you.
Because you have more gear, you could probably swap the bottom board every 2 days. Then you can keep sanitizing them between swaps.
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Adding to @JeffH 's post a frame with chalk brood mummies those mummies will look white and dry where a healthy larvae looks wet. They will be so obvious when you see them. Those frames are the ones to cycle out of the hive first and sanitize as previously described.
Re-queening is often advised but the hive I re-queened in a few months I found no benefit, but buying a new queen is a bit of a gamble, she might have better ‘clean house’ traits but she could also be a total fail. In the same situation again I wouldn’t re-queen. I would be more aggressive in removing infected frames. Seems to me that eggs and young larvae don’t succumb, a mummie fills the cell.
Cheers
I checked my hives today and wasn’t sure what I was seeing in the chalkbrood hive. There were still mummies on the bottom, and baby rice eggs in cups all over which I am taking as a good sign? I’ll include a blurry pic that I snapped that could be chalkbrood, but it seems like there isn’t nearly as many puffy brood cells as last week.
The first pic is way to blurry to make anything out. The second pic looks excellent and no sign of chalk brood in that pic that I can see.
If there is less mummies on the floor that is a good positive sign. New brood is good but what we are aiming for is less and less mummies no keep up the cleaning, even for a month after you stop seeing mummies as chalk brood spores can be in a hive for a long time after you stop seeing the signs of it.
Cheers
Thank you Peter! I tried to get a good picture but I was too busy trying to look for everything. Totally failed todays mission to look on the frames haha.
Relax Lindsay, slow down and work slow. Your clear photo was excellent. I know it is hard but concentrate your inspections to the issue you have, get the information you need and close up.
Cheers
Bingo…with all the advice that’s been given, I think there has been way too little attention given to this environmental condition. This spring I’ve been watching that stubborn blob of cold air that has settled into an area that stretches from Utah to 1500 miles north where I beekeep…northern Alberta Canada.
And when dealing with the dynamics of nuc management under these nighttime temperatures, what you have unfortunately experienced is normal…that is, chalkbrood thrives when the nuc colony is stressed by cool ambient temperatures. Deal with that cool ambient stressor first before approaching such issues as nuc supplier deficiencies and queen genetic deficiencies.
Some recommendations for cooler than normal spring nuc management to prevent chalkbrood infestation:
- Leave the 5 frame nuc in a 5 frame nuc box for approx 10 days…then transfer to a 10 frame brood box.
- If you are going to place the 5 frame nuc in a 10 frame brood box, then set the brood box up so no heat escapes from the top of the hive.
In my climate I use 6 mil poly to make a complete seal around the edge of the brood box…topped off with 1" or 2" rigid styrofoam insulation…note the inside frame feeder…syrup becomes the same temp as the brood nest…cold syrup can be fed to strong, established colonies but I don’t recommend feeding cold syrup to a newly arrived nuc.
- My last recommendation to prevent chalkbrood…especially in the case a new beekeeper…is to start with a 4 lb package of bees. With a 4 lb package, there is enough resilence provided by the initial critical mass of that huge workforce that any stressor can be dealt with…4 lb packages are very popular with inexperienced beekeepers in Alaska… plus in your case, a package that size will bring in a considerable amount of saleable honey and pollen from spring flowers.
My experienced has also shown me that an apiary location in the shade has a higher incidence of chalkbrood and chalkbrood disappears when you advance into summer…and of all the afflictions honeybee colonies are prone to, chalkbrood is very minor.
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Hi @Doug,
At what temperatures you start to put such insulation (if you ever remove it of course)?
As soon as we recieved the bees, the insulation went on. And we left it on until late spring…hives were 3 full depth brood boxes of bees…note the plastic sheet is still on…this photo is of a spring apiary site. Then those hives were moved to their more exposed summer locations…insulation removed.
Of course now I just keep them in an insulated building year round…big fan of warm night conditions to eliminate chalkbrood…haven’t seen it in decades. Before I started keeping those hives as warm as possible, the chalkbrood mummies showed up in the pollen trays…not exactly appetizing.
I was able to get clearer pics off of my husbands phone. I hope that some of these help.
These are all from the chalkbrood hive. I can see some of the broken in cells and dried larvae.
Oh thank you for this advice! So it looks like I have already made a bunch of mistakes like moving them out of their nuc too early, not sealing them in and not having styofoam. Right now my hives are in shade til about noon. I know that isn’t ideal now but I thought it would be good during our 100 degree summer days. But should I have them in full sun all day?