My own queens have defensive workers

[Erichalfbee]

So why are Buckfast so popular when you can’t breed F2 and F3 from them without defensive bees?

Agree with James. It’s not true. You need to source your bees well. I’ve had Buckfast from BS Honey Bees, from Exmoor Bees when Pete Little was alive and from Peter Stöfen . They were all exceptional queens and I simply replaced their great granddaughters because the bees reverted to “local”

 

[RogerIvy]

Thanks for all the advice, I'll try a different queen breeder next year.

 

[North End Bees]

Agree with James. It’s not true. You need to source your bees well. I’ve had Buckfast from BS Honey Bees, from Exmoor Bees when Pete Little was alive and from Peter Stöfen . They were all exceptional queens and I simply replaced their great granddaughters because the bees reverted to “local”

Do you only use Buckfast or have you tried BS Honeybees' carniolans?

 

[Curly green finger's]

He is also selling Qs on BIBBA. Very pleased with the ones I have bought.

Same here I’ve had queens from cardigan bay honey for the last 4 years and I have grand daughters which are still as good to work with.
On a par with buckfast side by side ceris bees are harder working when the weather isnt good winter on less stores hardly any feeding needed in the autumn and they just look at you when you inspect on unfavourable days.
I’ve had 7 queens this season from him and the three from June are in single brood and filling supers.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Do you only use Buckfast or have you tried BS Honeybees' carniolans?

I have had two queens from @B+.
Bred in his VSH program. I never had the nerve to not treat them but they did have a consistently lower burden than my others
I kept a daughter from each but the line fizzled out.

 

[Wilco]

Ceri (@mbc) breeds good queens as mentioned above in a few places. Many people on here have bought them.

 

[jarmo henttu]

I've come to the conclusion that my own queens mate with drones with defensive genetics. Perhaps I'm doomed to having to purchase new queens instead of rearing my own.
Each time I rear a queen or I have a supersedure I land up buying a queen to replace her because the offspring are too defensive.

Has anyone else got this problem?

First problem is that your drones are from defensive genes. I do not know how do you select your mother queens.

You may have defensive neighbours, but as you said, your own hives, queens and drones are defensive.

 

[Anduril]

My local problem with over defensive,nasty bees we atributted to a local beekeeper who struggled with vandalism, some of his local head bangers thought it was great fun to push over his hives and run away. So he delibretly kept "defensive" bees to protect his hives. A member of this forumn was for a while a SBI.. On his first visit to "Daft Dai" he had to use a crowbar to seperate the hive boxes.

I've been to his apiary (Daft Dai) and walked around the hives without protective gear on. The moment you open one hive up you have to wear protective gear it's a nighmare. There are horse stables nearby, they came after his bees, the horses certainly receive multiple stings

 

[Chris Hancock]

First problem is that your drones are from defensive genes. I do not know how do you select your mother queens.

You may have defensive neighbours, but as you said, your own hives, queens and drones are defensive.

This year, the virgins from my gentle strains of bees ( over 15 years) also came back and produced really nasty bees. I suspect that they met some of the drones from some similar to the only vicious swarm I had to collect a couple of years ago, which attacked and followed, stinging all the way, unlike any swarm I had ever picked up before. I did not want to leave it there for the public, so persevered and offered it a home ( in the hope they might be different once housed) but it was gone the next day, so that strain is probably still around. I had to start again from three of this year's colonies, but now seem to have some which chose nicer mates! The drones carry their mother's genes only, so if their mother was nasty it will be passed on. If you know your queens were from gentle bees, the mates they picked were the problem.

 

[Sutty]

I've had daughters of my own local reasonably docile bees that produced offspring that were horrible - if I'd started with buckfasts I'd have been blaming it on that (as I did about 30+yrs ago!).
The new daughter queen obviously hung out at the yobbo DCA rather than the gentlemanly one, thankfully her mum was also still in residence so daughter got squished!

 

[Chris Hancock]

Just worth sacrificing her drone brood as a varroa check, since they will pass on her traits. It seems to be a very worrying trend, and it would be such a shame to have aggressive honeybees at large even more than they have been.

 

[rolande]

"I've had daughters of my own local reasonably docile bees "

Just worth sacrificing her drone brood as a varroa check, since they will pass on her traits.

That would be a real issue I suppose

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Sometimes the native boys are just trouble, whatever you do, so buying new queens in is the only option.
From my queen-rearing something like 1 in 20 are 'flighty' and that queen doesn't survive long or if she isn't too bad, I stick her in a mini-nuc to give me brood for queen-rearing hives. Although there are beekeepers in the area which are close-by; several of them have had bees from me which helps with my genetics and as my colonies out-number the colonies I know of nearby, I have a little bit of a chance in supplying the drone gene-pool; there's some of my genetics in the hives near-by that come back.
I've never bought a Buckfast. I did buy a couple of Carniolans relatively recently and one was useless; the other did no better than my own girls for honey and behaviour was 'middleing' compared to mine.

 

[Ely]

I've come to the conclusion that my own queens mate with drones with defensive genetics. Perhaps I'm doomed to having to purchase new queens instead of rearing my own.
Each time I rear a queen or I have a supersedure I land up buying a queen to replace her because the offspring are too defensive.

Has anyone else got this problem?

I have the same issue but not with every queen. I made about 4 or 5 splits this year and only one turned nasty, really nasty. She has been replaced.

 

[Ely]

Sometimes the native boys are just trouble, whatever you do, so buying new queens in is the only option.
From my queen-rearing something like 1 in 20 are 'flighty' and that queen doesn't survive long or if she isn't too bad, I stick her in a mini-nuc to give me brood for queen-rearing hives. Although there are beekeepers in the area which are close-by; several of them have had bees from me which helps with my genetics and as my colonies out-number the colonies I know of nearby, I have a little bit of a chance in supplying the drone gene-pool; there's some of my genetics in the hives near-by that come back.
I've never bought a Buckfast. I did buy a couple of Carniolans relatively recently and one was useless; the other did no better than my own girls for honey and behaviour was 'middleing' compared to mine.

Are you still down the road?

 

[rolande]

This Dewey Caron video about defensive behaviour makes for interesting listening:

 

[Penninetrader]

Agree with James. It’s not true. You need to source your bees well. I’ve had Buckfast from BS Honey Bees, from Exmoor Bees when Pete Little was alive and from Peter Stöfen . They were all exceptional queens and I simply replaced their great granddaughters because the bees reverted to “local”

When they reverted to local what was the problem with that ?

 

[Erichalfbee]

When they reverted to local what was the problem with that ?

I do like bees that produce honey. The locals just don't cut it
I have a beekeeper not too far from me who is proud of her local bees. She had two buckets of honey from me early this year as she had run out and couldn't supply her customers. Happy to oblige. She phoned me yesterday to ask if I had more.........

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Are you still down the road?

Yep. A little further down the road though as I moved a couple of years ago.