From: Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>

>So, let me get this straight. To save a hive of bees, you wouldn't even throw it a banana!

...are you suggesting that a treatment with only anecdotal support should not only be used, but should be recommended and assumed to work?

But no, I would not "throw them a banana".  I think by now it should be clear that the balancing of the microbial culture is one of the things we are concerned with....a substance that can "cure" a chalkbrood infection by definition is having a strong impact on the microbial culture in the hive....exactly the kind of thing that we like to avoid.  If you want to put bananas in your hive, have at it.

I do have family members with severe (life threatening) food allergies however, and I would caution anyone who sells honey (or serves it at a fair) to put potential allergens in the hive.  You want to see a beekeeping related lawsuit?...try a child who dies from a banana allergy from your honey.  I have no idea if banana proteins are persistent in honey when introduced to the hive in this way, but if you don't use bananas in your hive, you are not the cause of such a problem.  

We had a tenant call and tell us that her young son tested positive for lead in his blood.  De-leading the house was the first thing Ramona had done when she bought it...of course the child was being watched at his grandmothers house (a house she owned) that was full of lead paint.  I don't think we would ever have found out about the lead in the grandmothers house if we did not first document that the house was tested for lead and deemed safe....we would have been determined as the cause...things like funds to support the victim for the rest of their lives is not uncommon.  All I'm saying is that if you put bananas in your hive and someone dies from a reaction to latex (related to banana allergy) when they have eaten your honey, things are going to be looked at a lot more closely than if you didn't.

We were very fortunate to have other beekeepers along with us to offer their opinions....Chris Baldwin had dire predictions for the yard, Erik Osterlund thought that the source of the chalk was the nurse bees from package stock, and agreed that since brood from the new queens had not yet emerged (7 of 8 banked virgins introduced 3 weeks before our visit directly to queenless nucs made up an hour previous without smoke had mated and were laying) that waiting another 2-3 weeks and check them again. We sometimes have a strong fall flow up there, and we do have honey to feed if necessary....I'm looking to genetics and/or letting the microbial culture work towards balance (one way or another) without interference.

We do know (from Starks et al) that chalkbrood challenged bees raise the hive temperature...presumably (as Science News reported), “The whole beehive gets a fever”...it tries to "cook" the infection...and presumably the bees do this for the reason that it does help them fight an infection.  A simple explanation might be that the banana agitates the hive (perhaps by mimicking alarm pheromone to some extent) and creates more heat than the hive will generate on its own.  

The observation that chalkbrood usually goes away when weather or forage improves supports the idea that the bees can generally control it themselves...perhaps with heat.  It might just "go away", but it is documented that the bees do something (heat) to fight it.

deknow

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