On April 24 I sent out a survey to BEE-L.  I had 5 responses (but if I get 10
or more new responses I will redo the analysis).  Here are the results.

WHO WOULD REALLY TREAT FOR CHALKBROOD ANYWAYS?

1. What percentage of your colonies has levels of chalkbrood that you feel
are costing you money (choose the closest)?
 - 0%
 - 25%
 - 50%
 - 75%
 - 100%

AVERAGE= 30%
HIGH= 50%
LOW= 10%
- half of the responses (2 out of 4) felt that chalkbrood does not cost
beekeepers any substantial amount of money.

MOST NOTABLE COMMENT:
"Having said that I have seen chalkbrood that was killing colonies - yes out
right killing of colonies and sometimes lots of them in an outfit.  In those
cases the beekeeper had a very heavy impact and was loosing all honey
production from quite a few colonies that were surviving and much reduced
honey production from many others.  In every yard though there were some
colonies with no chalkbrood that were producing a very good honey crop."

**********
2. What kind of reduction in disease severity would be worth the effort of
going on to the bee yard to take some action (choose the closest)?
 - 25% reduction
 - 50%
 - 75%
 - 100%

AVERAGE= 60%
HIGH= 100%
LOW= 25%

***********

3. If there was a product, queen source or management technique that would
leave you free of chalkbrood what would you pay per colony per season (choose
the closest)?
 - $0.50
 - $1.00
 - $2.00

AVERAGE= $0.90
HIGH= $2.00 (1 response)
LOW= $0.25 (2 responses)

MOST NOTABLE COMMENT:
"I would pay more for a treatment if I only had to treat affected colonies."

********

4. How bad does chalkbrood have to be before you will requeen (choose the
closest)?
 - I don't requeen, it is too much money and effort for the return
 - a single mummy on a frame or a bottom board
 - I do not have to look far to see signs of mummies
 - a big pile of mummies in the frames and one the bottom board

Responses were pretty much evenly spread out over the 4 categories.

MOST NOTABLE COMMENT:
"I do not have to look far to see signs of mummies (summer), or a big pile of
mummies (spring)".

5. If chalkbrood were a Hollywood villian who would it be (choose the
closest)?
 - Pee Wee Herman
 - one of the bad guys out of a Die Hard movie
 - Scarface

Most agreed on Pee Wee Herman, although there was one vote for Scarface.

MOST NOTABLE COMMENT:
"Sorry, Hollywood IS a villain. But I read.  Chalkbrood is Machiavelli".

Regards
Adony