>  It appears that some Aussie strains suffer
>> when exposed to North American strains of chalkbrood.

I run bees from Browns Bees Australia and chalkbrood is a thing of the past.
Hard culling in Australia and a trip to Australia by Dann Purvis to set up a
closed population instrumental insemination breeding program with breeder
queens completely free of chalkbrood has paid off. I have not even seen a
few cells with the last two years of imports.

I can not speak to the queens being imported from the other three
queen/package exporters.

I found three hives from the first importation of Aussie packages which
displayed some chalkbrood which I reported  in my second ABF article on the
Aussie bees when returned to Missouri from almonds. I told Browns Bees I had
to report what I found in my article ( Terry Brown wanted me to be honest in 
my evaluation. I believe Randy Oliver was given some browns bees to test 
last year. I think Randy will attest to the fact that terry wants an honest 
evaluation of his bees) and he needed to lose the chalkbrood
rap which has been long discussed with Aussie bees sent into Canada. The
Canada import which Allen wrote about in his diary was a long time ago.

Have you seen a chalkbrood issue in those bees randy?

My recommendation to Canadian beeks would be to call the NZ or Aussie source 
and say if they
do not get the chalkbrood issue under control you will stop buying their
queens. What I would do!

I will say to the other three Australian exporters if reading that you MUST
eliminate chalkbrood in your bees being shipped into the U.S.. i hear
reports of chalkbrood in the other bees shipped in. Commercial beeks will
buy chalkbrood susceptible bees when their backs are against the wall but if
through *serious culling* you reduce incident of chalkbrood to say 1 or 2%
of colonies commercial beeks will buy your bees at other times than only
when their backs are against the wall.( in danger of losing an almond 
pollination contract)

I might add that from discussions with other beeks we normally see
chalkbrood at very low levels in bees from U.S. stock. Light issues will
usually clear up when brood rearing starts in earnest.

bob

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