Chilled Brood
Krankheiten
Chilled brood is spoken of when the colony can no longer maintain the brood nest temperature and the brood dies as a result.
Chilled brood is spoken of when the colony can no longer maintain the brood nest temperature and the brood dies as a result. One cold night in spring or autumn is enough if too few bees sit in a hive that is too large.
Typical triggers are too much space offered to a weak colony, tight food stores, and beekeeping interventions in cold weather. In winter, woodpecker holes, broken-open or overturned hives, and drafts are added. Both C-shaped larvae and entire capped brood can die. The workers visibly open the dead cells, and the dead brood remains and begins to rot.
Chilled brood is not a disease in itself, but it opens the door to brood diseases. Chalkbrood is explicitly considered a factor-related disease that is favored by cold, dampness, and low bee mass.
Distinguishing it from foulbrood is important. In American Foulbrood, the decomposed brood forms threads in the matchstick test, smells of hide glue, and leaves a brown scale firmly attached to the cell wall, with sunken and perforated cell cappings. In European Foulbrood, the scale can be lifted out, and it smells sour or like cheese. None of this is found with chilled brood.
Prevention means: adjusting the space to colony strength, in spring only inspecting briefly and superficially on sunny days above ten degrees, keeping hives tight, and uniting colonies that are too weak in autumn rather than wintering them separately.