Hello all. Hope to get some input, but first a little background. I have three overwintered hives. Two filling about half of an 8 frame deep each with about three frames of capped brood. The third I just took two five frame Nucs off of it and it still fills three 8 frame deeps. Bottom deep is mostly pollen/temp storage and top two boxes are brood nest. I am getting two packages on Saturday along with queens for my new Nucs.
I am planning on doing my first ever queen rearing in June. I was fully intending on using my big hive to graft from, but I found that they have chalkbrood. Grrrrr. Despite this they are still leaps and bounds further ahead of my other overwintered hives. I want to select the best genetics to rear queens from. So on one hand I want to graft from the hive that has clearly done the best, but am hesitant to encourage chalkbrood tolerance. Thoughts?
Quote from: Bush_84 on May 03, 2017, 12:49:42 PM
Hello all. Hope to get some input, but first a little background. I have three overwintered hives. Two filling about half of an 8 frame deep each with about three frames of capped brood. The third I just took two five frame Nucs off of it and it still fills three 8 frame deeps. Bottom deep is mostly pollen/temp storage and top two boxes are brood nest. I am getting two packages on Saturday along with queens for my new Nucs.
I am planning on doing my first ever queen rearing in June. I was fully intending on using my big hive to graft from, but I found that they have chalkbrood. Grrrrr. Despite this they are still leaps and bounds further ahead of my other overwintered hives. I want to select the best genetics to rear queens from. So on one hand I want to graft from the hive that has clearly done the best, but am hesitant to encourage chalkbrood tolerance. Thoughts?
If they are doing real well, I think they have figured it out. If you are seeing the chalk brood on the door step and not in the hive, that is good. I suspect you are having a wet spring. Once it drys out it should improve. If not they will probably supercede with a queen that can handle it.
Jim