Buckfast Bees

[Stiffy]

rose cottage:

would that be buckfast x crecopia? Greek bees from B***********s?

Have already posted but beware the MM from the above supplier. My 2010 are now at full colonies and real bxxxxds. Will sting at the first opportunity and follow 100's of yards from apiary. They seem to be blessed with a tremendous memory though as this behaviuor continues for several days following an inspection......great!
Suffice to say I am re-queening asap with Buckfast I have reared.
S

 

[Pookiesbees]

I did my introduction to beekeeping (8 week) course at Buckfast last year. Excellent course run by an inspirational lady, Claire Densley, who is also a sbi. Claire told us there are no true Brother Adam Buckfast bees left, as they have all bred out with whatever is on the market at the time! Devon hybrids is how she described the abbey's bees. Extremely gentle on the whole, with the odd exception naturally.

 

[MuswellMetro]

The answer to the problem is simple. Only buy queens that are local mongrels and you can't go far wrong.!!

unless you are in an area like london, we have no local mongrel bee, forage is so good that you used to get isolated pockets of local X type bee and next to it local Y type bee, i have seen black AMMx this year in an industrial location with very negative wing shift and witihin 2 miles all AML types

we have packet bees with Carnies from Poland, Slovakia, Czech Rep,Greek x C ,Greek x Carnies. Italians, Hawaiians, New Zealand, Norfolk and Essex Blacks etc

talked to beginner last week his Queen was in a box which came from Ukraine via Gloucester

any open mating in London as Tom Bick says is NOW a total gamble, i have had terrible queen this year bred 4 miles from their parent home apairy which still produces calm nice bees ( junction 25 M25 to Junction 23 M25 not a great distance)

 

[hedgerow pete]

I have just had my three bad hives burnt out by the farmers worker because they went for the tractor he was on in the field near my out apairy, they were black mongrel bees that were a little towards the mardy side but not that bad, i did a queen breeding cycle and had to replace the old queens due to them not superceduer properly and the ones i replaced them with were by far rthe worse bees i have ever own and thats including sahara african bees,

i was going to buy some new queens to replace them but did not have to in the end,

as with all bee breeding you pays your money and takes your chances, unless you are going to do ai , its pot luck some times.

must admit until this lot came along the worse bees ever before them was a buckfast strain on its first cross breed

 

[Norton]

The BIG mistake you are all making is trying to breed from F1 Buckfasts which are open mated for honey production. The breeding of bees and in particular Buckfast is completely different from the production of the F1s for honey. You are attempting to breed from genetic material which is not meant to be bred from. You say you breed from Bucfast queens - where are these queens from? Were they sold to you as breeding stock or just open mated queens?
I've always said for my own queens that any breeding attempts should be done with caution.
Best regards
Norton.

 

[bobandbec]

I am on up to third generation queens from F1 stock bought from Roger (Norton) and have had some very good results from them both in terms of temperament and adaptability to local conditions. The odd colony is a little "lively" so I don't put all my eggs in one basket when i'm trying queen raising then there are options if needed.
The OSR flow makes them tetchy but then after it they settle down again. I usually don't need to use any smoke in fact they seem to be better sometimes without it.
I know I have crosses now and I'm seeing how they perform this season. The bees on the rape have averaged about 70lb per honey producing colony. These are all 2nd or 3rd generation crosses and were all workable even on the rape.
Are these becoming local bees?

Peter

 

[BKF Admin]

The odd colony is a little "lively" so I don't put all my eggs in one basket when i'm trying queen raising then there are options if needed.

Peter

Thats the trick