jen, i have no experience with feeding bees bananas, so really can't answer your question, but a good question.
ihor......welcome to the forum and thanks for posting!
the link you posted to the australian governments article on treating chalkbrood does not mention using bananas. this is a good article and i have seen it before. it does give a good description of how bees suffer and bee gut bacteria.
throughout the article, multiple times:
"This work also showed that feeding sugar solution led to a
faster recovery from Chalkbrood symptoms in bee colonies.""The feeding of sugar solution seems to be the only artificial way to improve recovery from
Chalkbrood disease currently. The increase in gut microflora with this method again suggests this
to be a beneficial method for increasing gut bacterial populations. Therefore feeding of sugar
solution can also be recommended in relation to gut microflora maintenance."also in the article:
"Feeding sugar syrup will promote hygienic behaviour within a colony and reduce or eliminate the
symptoms of Chalkbrood (Somerville, 2005)"
so my question ihor.......how does feeding honey bees bananas help them recover from chalkbrood?
besides what is mentioned in this article, there are other methods to help honeybees recover from chalkbrood, and reasons why chalkbrood may have started to begin with. i have no experience ihor, with top bar hives, but i do have experience with chalkbrood, and not sure feeding honeybees a banana is going to resolve a chalkbrood issue?
not sure this goes to jen's question. she is not treating chalkbrood, but asks if banana's are a good natural food source. i can't answer that question.
i am sort of a traditionalist when it comes to honey bees and what i feed them or don't feed them, as well as treatments and antibiotics. with that said, i am always open to learning what works and what doesn't.