>antibiotic use will negatively impact the bacteria that do keep the chalkbrood in check...with predictable results.
>again, this is well studied, and i don't expect you will have any trouble finding references to these studies.
>my apologies for not quoting individual sections...i thought that this was well known and well accepted, at least since >the work of martha gilliam.  here are a few cites

You're joking, right? None of those sources backs up this assertion.

In her 1978 work, she concludes that "differences exist in the
intestinal microflora of honey bees from caged colonies and from
free-flying colonies. Also, feeding 2,4-D or a combination of
oxytetracycline and fumagillin to bees causes shifts in the
microflora".

She does NOT say antibiotics promote chalkbrood, as you assert. In
fact, she wrote: "Of special interest is the fact that no Bacillus
organisms were isolated from bee guts during the hot summer months of
June, July, August, and September."  This is when chalkbrood usually
clears up on its own. I suggest what this means is that microbes of
all sorts tend to diminish during the summer months, when the hive is
well populated, properly fed and ventilated. Old timers often assert
that nothing is better for a hive than a good honeyflow. All sorts of
problems just go away.

1988, ten years later, she writes:

> Thus, since the pathogen [chalkbrood] is often present in bee colonies which never show symptoms of the disease, breeding of queen bees from such colonies would seem a logical approach for control.

Then, in 1997:

> Our efforts to develop control methods for chalkbrood are based on determination of the mechanisms that enable bee colonies to cope with and survive the disease, particularly those colonies that do not show clinical symptoms even when the pathogen is present in high concentration. Genetically determined hygienic behavior (uncapping of cells and removal of diseased and dead larvae) by nurse worker bees was found to be the primary mechanism of resistance or tolerance to chalkbrood.

> A secondary mechanism of resistance is the addition during pollen collection and storage by bees of antagonistic molds and Bacillus spp. that inhibit the pathogen. Bee colonies that are resistant or tolerant have more of these antagonists. Antimycotic substances active against A. apis were not produced by bees, larvae, bee bread, or honey. However, bee bread and the guts of worker bees, the major sources of the pathogen, were the primary sources of the antagonistic microorganisms. Thus, the antimycotic substances were produced by microorganisms that originated in worker bee intestines. These microorganisms were added to pollen by the bees.

Comment: This points to hygienic behavior as the primary mechanism for
controlling disease, and also to the presence of beneficial gut
organisms as a component of the phenomenon of hygienic bees. I think
you have cherry picked the work to bolster your case, when in reality
the message of some thirty years of study is that bees need to be
selected and bred for hygienic behavior. Of course, this is what is
being done by many whether it is by letting susceptible bees die out,
or to look for and enhance particular traits. Better bees simply
require less attention.

pb

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