It takes brood rearing, however, fueled by pollen, in order for chalkbrood to develop. There are two sides of the nutritional coin, both must be taken into consideration during colony inspection. Generally beekeepers most concern themselves with the carbohydrate side. They look at a colony to see if it has enough honey stores. It's relatively easy to estimate the amount of honey a colony has and will use.
Honey only represents energy for a colony.
Pollen provides important protein building blocks and must be present to produce spring replacement bees each year when large numbers of winter bees are dying off. During brood rearing, bees can use a large amount of pollen in a hurry. Estimating the amount needed can be difficult, because some is very often available in the field when most needed. The quality of the pollen collected is also important, some plants produce more nutritious pollen than others. Like the diet of any organism, a good mixture is probably required.