Certainly bald brood may be seen where wax moths tunnel through brood, but
this is usually on a very limited scale and is not, I would suggest, what we
really mean by 'bald brood'.  Where wax moth is involved I would regard the
cells as damaged, whereas true bald brood is seen where large areas of cells
are not capped.

Here in the Midlands we saw an unusual amount of bald brood in the spring
this year - it was common in colonies large and small, black and yellow, so
I doubt the genetic link.  Was it due to the weather?  This year has been
very unusual, with a very early spring following an unusually mild winter -
many colonies had wall to wall brood and up to 100lbs of honey by the end of
April, whereas we night expect perhaps 7 frames of brood and no honey stored
in supers at that time.  Maybe it was the very heavy, early flow.

I do remember many years ago having a four frame mating nuc with a new queen
and this had three frames of completely bald brood.  The nuc was on the
point of starvation and was given warm syrup.  Within a couple of days all
of the brood had been capped.

Peter Edwards
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger White" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 07 September 2002 15:38
Subject: [BEE-L] small colony update - bald brood.


Hi All,
The bald brood is indeed associated with wax moth infestations - it is very
common here and was present before the arrival of Varroa in 1982.