Home▸Animals & Their World▸Chalkbrood: Recognising and Managing This Common Fungal Brood Disease

🍄 Chalkbrood: Recognising and Managing This Common Fungal Brood Disease

An interactive 3D brood comb where humidity, brood-nest temperature, cluster coverage and hygienic stock selection decide whether Ascosphaera apis spores turn larvae into chalky mummies.

Animals & Their World3DAdvanced60 FPS

A hexagonal brood comb where each larva lives through the chalkbrood life cycle in miniature — healthy, infected by spreading mycelium, mummified into a chalky (or dark, sporulating) lump, and, if the colony is hygienic, uncapped and removed by workers.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Cooler brood temperature and higher humidity both push Ascosphaera apis spores toward germination, while cells outside the bee cluster's coverage chill fastest and turn to mycelium and mummies soonest — visibly linking hive conditions to disease spread.

🎮 How to Use

Lower the brood nest temperature or raise humidity to watch infection accelerate, shrink cluster coverage to expose more of the comb to chilling, and raise hygienic stock selection to see worker bees patrol the comb and clear mummies before they build up.

💡 Did You Know?

About 15% of the cells here are modelled as drone cells, which sit at the cooler margins of a real brood nest — their mummies often sporulate into the tell-tale grey-black colour beekeepers use to confirm a chalkbrood diagnosis.

⚙ Under the hood

An interactive 3D brood comb where humidity, brood-nest temperature, cluster coverage and hygienic stock selection decide whether Ascosphaera apis spores turn larvae into chalky mummies.

beesfungibrood diseasehivemycologypestsThree.js

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install