Hi All:
 
I noted with interest this spring (in the north) that people using a small
amount of real pollen in their pollen substitute / extenders seemed to have
better acceptance, even having it taken down after some pollen is available
"in the wild".  So I dusted off my ten pollen traps and have them out and
they are yielding quite nicely.
 
All the other hives in the home yard are splits or being used for queen
rearing, so if I want to change the traps to other hives I would have to use
another yard (inconvenient for emptying them regularly) or bring some more
hives home (a possibility if necessary).  My problem is that in four of the
ten hives there are a few chalkbrood mummies each day in with the pollen
pellets.  There is not that many, and they are not a huge problem to pick
out, but I have no idea about what tolerance should be acceptable.  If I
miss a few am I going to contaminate all my pollen substitute next spring?
Right now the bees are bringing in mostly a very dark green pollen, and it
would not be hard to miss a black mummy if it was broken to same size as a
pellet. Those are the mummies that a supposed to be full of infective
spores.  Should I be looking for zero tolerance or should I just figure that
if I pick through carefully that will not overload them (there must be quite
a lot of spores in most of my equipment, since a large numbers of hives show
symptoms in the spring during the rapid buildup period.  Most seem to clear
it up later on, although even very strong ones will show a few infected
drone cells by times.
 
Allen's recounting of buying some pollen one year and having a big
chalkbrood problem after has me a bit worried.
 
By the way, I note with great interest that in the one hive which is by far
the best yielder of pollen the pellets are huge.  They look to be nearly
twice as big as the pellets of the other hives. (I should really weigh ten
of them from that hive and a control and compare, I do have a triple beam
balance here.)  Has anybody else noticed variability in this?
 
Regards, Stan