Oh Jape…I am prostrate laughing…he he…you have a wicked sense of humour.
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Very illuminating, @JeffH, thank you for sharing the information. You are a gentleman of integrity.
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I am with Skeggley. I value the variety of opinions here, and I love reading about your experience. I admire you for keeping bees at such a challenging site, and succeeding at it. I really hope that you will continue posting, because you contribute greatly to the richness of this environment.
Dawn
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Ha ha …I don’t know about success…we are at the mercy of the weather…and boy do we get it rough sometimes.
I’ll hang in for a while and see how things go.
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Of course we are successful in the face of adversity. We have our Welsh Black Bees and we have some of the best Buckfast in the world coming over from just the other side of the Bristol Channel 
I suppose your Carnies are ok too as long as we dilute them a little:innocent:
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I am surprised it is not 11 days of rain… 
Yes goat willow is out and pollen is being collected I agree about the sheep though. We need some rewilding of the countryside. We can send you our sheep.
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Hold on there Dawn we blame the jet stream and the brecons
Many years ago, I went hiking and youth hosteling in the Brecon Beacons with my school. I have never been so wet for so much of the day in my life, and I had full waterproof jacket, trousers and hiking boots. My toes were like prunes by the end of each day, and our groups’ boots steamed for the whole evening in front of the youth hostel fireplace. Eventually we stopped trying to jump over streams - we were so wet, it was just easier to walk through them.
So, I have great respect for Welsh bees and their beekeepers. 
Well rain and cloud for all this week…next week there is some sunshine in the middle of the week but still cold…nighttime temperatures still only just above freezing. Today it is raining but only light soft rain.
I have spent the entire winter in wet weather gear…I have worn out my wellingtons…the sole is very thin.
We have just had the first dry weather…one week…bliss with sunshine too…lucky us.
Correct;
The bees can’t clean under the screen so the stuff just lays there and rots.
Just wanted to post an update on my chalk brood problem and what I did to fix it with the help of @JeffH.
After reviewing the various suggestions made on the forum I came to the conclusion that the most likely cause of the chalk brood was that the hive was being stressed by my inspections and was to weak as a new hive to cope. As an inexperienced beekeeper, I was taking too long, using too much smoke and doing the inspections either in the wrong weather or at the wrong time of day. The combination of these with a new hive is what I believe to have caused the chalk brood.
Jeff kindly offered to provide me with five frames of bees to boost the population particularly seeing the next generation were being hindered by the chalk brood. Uniting the bees was a good experience for me at such an early stage and it went mostly without a hitch however I did learn that all those bees are capable of lifting lids if they decide they want to go up. I now know to tape the top board down next time. The colony became very aggressive following the unification and it was very difficult to even go near the hive for about five days after. They have since settled down to their previous demeanor. I have not found any evidence of chalk brood in the last week and feel confident this plan has worked.
The consequence of boosting the bee numbers has had the added benefit of moving along the progression of the brood box to the point that I have now added the flow frames super. There is a strong smell of honey coming from the hive now and the bees are working away feverishly on the flow frames.
In my reading I came across a face book post on a local beekeepers page which supported not replacing queens when chalk brood presented. Maybe this is peculiar to SE Qld but it does stand to reason that if you replace the queen in a new hive you are going to weaken the hive further, leading it to becoming more prone to chalk brood. For anyone that is interested here is the post and I apologise to any one if this is old news.
CHALK BROOD DISEASE: -
We found, prior to 1990, that replacing the queen only as per some books state, some hives could get worse and in some instances the hives were lost, so we experimented on a number of different ways to clear the problem
When Chalk Brood Disease is discovered in any of our hives, we remove those frames from the brood super and place above the excluder in the center of a strong (colony) honey hive (middle super).
Any hives that were infested with the disease never had it return to those hives
Generally the Chalk Brood mummies are removed and cells are cleaned within 48 hours (sometimes earlier, depending on conditions) because the bees want to fill those cells with nectar. The same applies to frames of pollen removed from the brood super
If there is a good queen in the hive there is no need to replace her
We have been using this method 1990, which proves that this method works
The bees get Chalk Brood Disease because they have come under stress – generally can be, if there is a lot of rainy weather, too much air space in the hive, bee numbers dwindling or dearth of nectar or pollen
Next time, as I am sure there will be, I will be able to try the swapping of frames above the queen excluder which seems like a pretty sensible way of getting the chalk brood cleaned up.
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Wow, fabulous update, thank you! You and Jeff are a credit to Queensland beekeeping.
Don’t worry too much about the chalkbrood. If it was just a little bit and you aren’t seeing any more, I wouldn’t go chucking any frames out. We used to get it all the time in the UK - if it was sparse and patchy, no worries. Usually just meant that we spent too long inspecting the hive on a suboptimal day. If there is a lot (10% or more of the brood), that is a whole different ball game. In any case, replacing the queen as you are going into Autumn, even in a mild climate, is a risky business. I am very glad that you have decided not to do that right now.
Thank you so much for getting back to us with an update. That is what makes this forum so valuable for all of us. 
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Thanks for the update Paul, I’m pleased the bees are working on the flow frames. I’m looking forward to your update on the flow frames. There’s a bit of a honey flow going on up here at the moment. good luck with it, cheers
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Hi & thank you Dawn. I found a frame yesterday that was wayyyy over 10%. I ended up cutting it out. It didn’t make sense for the bees to have to pull the mummies out of the comb, then through the QX & then out the entrance. Too much contact with it, I thought.
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Sounds right to me, Jeff. But you are a pro. It is all a question of balance, and it is very hard to know where to draw the line. That is why beekeeping is a mix of art and science - we have to try to balance both of those.
Thanks Dawn but not sure I am a credit to anything yet. Jeff on the other hand …
Just trying to learn as I go. Just checked in on the flow frames now and the the frame at the viewing window is well on its way to having the gaps waxed up. Shouldn’t be too long before I start seeing some honey I expect.
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