I don’t have first hand experience beekeeping in Utah…so you always have to be taking advice from me or anyone else outside of your climatic area with a grain of salt. And chalkbrood is worse some years more than other years…so what may be useful advice now may not be applicable to every spring in the future…welcome to beekeeping!
And don’t look at your first experience with beekeeping from the perspective of making mistakes…just look at it as “improving the odds” of managing the bees the best possible way for your circumstances…a moving target. It astounds me after many decades of beekeeping how many variables influence the health and productivity of honeybees.
I try to locate my hives so they get the warmth of the early morning sun…after a cool night that helps them out. And if they are shaded, it should be during the warmest time of day…ask some local beekeepers how good of an idea it is to have them in full sun all day.
Nice photos and I wouldn’t be too concerned about the odd cell of chalkbrood…but your brood frames shown are light on feed. The bees burn through calories to keep that brood warm…but if there isn’t a source for calories i.e. honey/sugar syrup, the open brood will succumb to chalkbrood. So if the nuc was made up light on feed and a bit too much open brood…and this does happen…then this could have been the problem from the beginning. I’d have to be there to see the hive myself.
Here’s a photo of a brood frame with adequate stores:
Not every brood frame in the broodbox needs to have this much feed…but half of them should. On good flying days this time of year, your bees should be able to get what they need from natural sources…and I suspect your weather will start cooperating shortly.
Hi Lindsay, I can see quite a few sunken caps in this photo. There could be chalk brood mummies under those. However in your second photo down of the last 4 photos you posted there is a chalk brood mummy staring us in the face. It is left & lower than the center of the photo. Slightly above & to the right of the lowest bee. That’s what you’re looking for when identifying chalk brood in brood frames.
This nuc was light on feed for sure. During our first inspection we found no honey. We have been feeding sugar syrup and pollen patties and making sure its full everyday.
You’re welcome Lindsay. In the second photo down of 18 hours ago, you can see tiny perforations in some of the caps. Generally if you remove the caps, that will reveal more chalk brood. Then you get a better idea of how badly affected the frame is when you add the visible ones & the ones under sunken perforated caps together.
Just my thoughts but I suspect the nurse bees will uncap any larvae that has chalk brood.
Bees are easily stressed and that can make them vulnerable to chalk brood.
When the guy from the DPI paid me a visit he had a look at the brood and confirmed chalk brood then the first question he asked was had I recently moved the hives, which I had two weeks earlier. I posted a pic on this forum and got three replies confirming chalk brood and all had moved their hive. I’m not saying a hive that it will get chalk brood but that with a hive under stress if might push them over the cliff, and maybe more likely if a fast change in temperature happens at the same time as relocating the hive…
I see what Jeff has pointed out and so well described where the cells are,
Cheers
Ok, so just leave them alone and stop stressing them out and hopefully by summer it will resolve itself haha? Knock on wood but I think that we are starting to really warm up here with no more cold nights hopefully! Thank you everyone!
It is a matter of balancing out leaving them alone and doing regular inspections and cycling out badly infected frames. Keep the inspections as short in time as possible. Make a plan what you want to do in an inspection and what you are going to be looking for. Opening up a hive disturbs the colony but work slow and smooth to reduce the amount of stress.
Cheers
We haven’t changed out the bottom board in a couple of days (my bad!) and changed it today. We were able to cycle out 1 old frame last week and hope to do it again this week. Trying to not get too discouraged and hoping for the nurses and the warm weather to help this out, like you have all said. You guys are great!! We got this nuc on April 26, so I am hoping that in a week or so we might see less chalkbrood? Since this is a new queen. Just hopeful wishing at this point haha!
You won’t clear the hive of Chalk Brood as quickly as you would like, just keep plugging away at it.
That is an excellent photo of chalk brood Lindsay.
Warmer weather will be a help. From memory it took about 6 months for my hives to recover from it, I lost count of the number of frames and hours but such a buzz when I finally didn’t see mummies in the hives, that made it all worth while.
Cheers
Your doing just fine doing what you are Linsay but please don’t expect a quick fix result or you will be disappointed. The guy from the DPI suggested it would take 6 months and he was right, towards the end a few inspections convinced he the Chalk Brood was gone but a week later it was back in the brood but a reduced amount of it. But remember I had some frames that had 30% of the cells with mummies so the time need to have a clean hive will depend on how much it is infected by the spores.
Cheers
By that time we will be in winter. Yikes! I hope that I can figure it out before I have to figure out how to winter my hives. Ahh! 