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I give them an empty frame (without foundation) in the brood box, no need of drone comb building after that. The frame is in the hive all year round and you can cull it or use for queen mating. This is a trait one can also select for - less burr comb, less drone comb and a compact brood nest.

Never witnessed any figting. I make nucs out of several hives and never a problem when using broodframes with bees or young bees from broodframes. If you combine two big hives, then use some sort of distraction or simply newspaper.

So going back to the original question a bit ;) Buckfast origin: 1920 - cross made between dark leather colored italian and old English 1940 - french bee cross was introduced after a ten year development 1960 - the greek cross was incorporated 1974 - the anatolian...

I seriously doubt the line today has those percents. The Buckfast bee today, on the market is not the same as Brother Adams in terms of genetics. Even if it is done on selections for positive traits as the central anatolian has many of the same positive traits as the west european race (a.m.m)...

Yes, but you misunderstood me. This is the line (sinop62) of which many sublines have been made and has been the dominant line when you watch all breeders of buckfast in europe. I'm not talking about the Brother Adam Buckfast in it's pure form. I am talking about modern day Buckfast...

All the buckfast lines with origin sinop62 is originates to that mating.

This is the most dominant drone- and queen-line. Sublines of this original are in almost every line. The Anatolian breeder A416 (Sinop) mated with the drones of B-423 at Dartmoor. http://perso.fundp.ac.be/~jvandyck/homage/elver/pedgr/ped_BA_1962.html

Here is the origin according to Brother Adam: http://www.pedigreeapis.org/elver/ori/origin-en.html The Buckfast strain today has it's origin mostly in Anatolian bee. There are also many lines of; African origin (Monticola, sahariensis and some unknown of south african) Greece...

If they stop brood rearing in early autumn it is good. If they keep on rearing brood long into winter beacause of a warm hive it is bad or if they start to early in spring. Brothet Adam writes in his book that there was some positive effect of winter and to keep them more cool would give more...

Different races gather different volumes of pollen. Italians and Carniolans don't gather an abundance in summer. There are also differnces in wingpower. Some fly in colder. Italians has poor wingpower and needs warmer to fly, especially longer distancies. Carniolan and a.m.m fly readily in 8...

What do you mean? Sweden has a handful of Buckfast stations. A few ligustica and carnica. One for the black bee. They have a seperate brreding group for all these and test every queen. Proffesionals use mostly tested queens for production of production queens. Same in Denmark, they use mostly...

That is why you let the breeder or the breeding group do the testing and YOU buy the tested queen.

There is nothing wrong with free open mating as long as you only produce production queens and it should be used when producing production queens. But if you want to breed and improve a stock, the only realistic way is full control, otherwise you loose as much as you gain in every generation and...

Obviously the two queens failed the test. only a test of more than 30 queens will give some realistic measure.

It matters if ones expectetions is based on false expectetions because of false experience.

Without full control any breeding work is a hopeless gamble. Everyone wants supreme queens that are gentle, don't swarm and produce. If you are not able as a backyard beekeeper to do it, support and buy queens of those that do. As a backyard beekeeper if you still want to prduce your own F1...

As far as I know that swedish ligustica VSH is not american, but Bert Thyrbom's selection work. He may and may not have used genes from allover the world as he is a master in instrumental insemination.

This is simple and gives good queens, when 10-20 queens is needed at once. If more than 20 queens is needed use Brother Adams method (same as Michael Palmer). Simple no extra gear queen rearing system which can be used all summer in the same colony. 1. Divide a very strong two story colony...

Here in Finland we had last weekend the pleasure of listening to Josef Stich from Austria telling us about organic beekeeping in Austria running 350 hives and some hundred nucs. He was only wearing a cowboy hat when working the apiaries and the whole family, wife and couple of children, all...

We can very well cultivate maize here, last summer for example there was a farmer in the neighbouring town cultivating maize. Not easy but can be done, we just have a lack in know-how and very bad summers lately. It will be more common in the years to come. Another thing is that we don't have...