Honey and Pollen from NUC with chalkbrood

[George Fergusson]

Hey All-

When I re-hived a new weak chalkbrood infected colony into a 4 frame NUC last week, I had to pull a couple of frames. One of them has uncapped eggs in it (waah!) which I didn't see at the time, or I might have included it in the NUC. The comb is incompletely drawn and it's on black plastic foundation to boot so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, but the other frame is full of honey and pollen. With the weather we're having lately, the bees could use these stores. Is there any reason why I shouldn't stick this back in one of my hives?

George-

[Michael Bush]

I would give it to a hive. Otherwise it will just go to waste.

[George Fergusson]

Thanks Michael- that's what I *wanted* to do but was unsure about the chalkbrood situation. I know it's nothing to be burning hives over, but I didn't want to introduce "problems" into another ostensibly healthy hive. Chalkbrood however is supposedly passed on through brood food and it is in any case a prevalent fungus that is pretty much just waiting for the right conditions to assert itself. Given the likely hygenic conditions in the bee-yard my bees came from, chalkbrood fungus is probably dormant in all my hives already.

George-

[Michael Bush]

I think chaulkbrood is more a matter of climate and ventilation than exposure to spores.

[Robert Brenchley]

Climate, ventilation (I've known it to disappear when a hive was given a mesh floor) and genetics. It's almost always found in A.m.m. colonies; all mine have it at a low level. The reason is possibly that they let the broodnest temperature drop at night, which saves on food stores in bad weather, but creates susceptibility to chalk.