Splitting Buckfast Colony - will they turn bad

[bobba]

Hello,

I have one colony headed by a Buckfast queen. She came with the nuc I purchased and was the daughter of a breeder queen that was open mated.

At some point in the future I hope to split my colony.

My bees have had a good temperament (so far), which is very important to me as I want to keep them in my garden. (I do have a back-up pace to take them if needs be).

I have read that Buckfast bees can become vicious if the line is not kept pure.

Will I be able to split my hive, producing my own open mated queen, or will this risk leaving me with nasty bees?

Are my bees classed as f1 or f2 hybrids?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ian123]

Ok it’s going to depend on what she mates with, the same as with other race/strain. If as you say your queen came from an open mated mother then you are already f2. As a single hive owner of any type of bee your options are restricted. Let us know what your aiming for and we can try and chip in

 

[SWEET]

@ Bobba - Split a hive last year and used a new queen from supplier, hive doing really well, bees are super chilled!

I'm thinking of creating a two frame Nuc in the coming weeks and this time letting the bees raise a Queen, will be interesting.

 

[For want of a better word]

Hello,

I have one colony headed by a Buckfast queen. She came with the nuc I purchased and was the daughter of a breeder queen that was open mated.

At some point in the future I hope to split my colony.

My bees have had a good temperament (so far), which is very important to me as I want to keep them in my garden. (I do have a back-up pace to take them if needs be).

I have read that Buckfast bees can become vicious if the line is not kept pure.

Will I be able to split my hive, producing my own open mated queen, or will this risk leaving me with nasty bees?

Are my bees classed as f1 or f2 hybrids?

Thanks in advance.

You do not say which area you live in... but apparently one forum member has informed us that all the bees in the North West of Yorkshire turn nasty if any open mating is allowed!

Chons da

Chons da

 

[Beefriendly]

I have read that Buckfast bees can become vicious if the line is not kept pure.

Will I be able to split my hive, producing my own open mated queen, or will this risk leaving me with nasty bees?

Are my bees classed as f1 or f2 hybrids?

Thanks in advance.

All you can do is try. A lot depends on the nature of the local bees as it will be the drones from these that your queen will mate with.
Generally if your local bees are calm and placid then you will be fine. If the local bees are nightmares then you may not be.
However if you purchase station/island mated queens and breed from them then it matters little what the local bees are like as the first (F1) generation from these queens will still be 100% Buckfaast and express all the desirable traits you are after.

 

[beeno]

@ Bobba - Split a hive last year and used a new queen from supplier, hive doing really well, bees are super chilled!

I'm thinking of creating a two frame Nuc in the coming weeks and this time letting the bees raise a Queen, will be interesting.

Hope you don't intend the two frame nuc to raise the queen. High chance of being a scrub queen.

 

[SWEET]

Hope you don't intend the two frame nuc to raise the queen. High chance of being a scrub queen.

If thats the case I'll replace with another purchased queen, it's really a bit of test to see how it pans out.

 

[Repwoc]

Hello,
... and was the daughter of a breeder queen that was open mated.

Do you mean your queen (the daughter) was open mated or the breeder queen was open mated? Generally, breeder queens are not open mated because then the genetic heritage is unknown.

Hello,
Will I be able to split my hive, producing my own open mated queen, or will this risk leaving me with nasty bees?

That largely depends on the drone that will sire the new queen. Only one way to find out …

Hello,
Are my bees classed as f1 or f2 hybrids?

I understand, but expect to be corrected...

If the breeder queen was open mated (and her mother was pure and control mated), your queen is F1 and her progeny (your bees and daughter queens) are F2.

If the breeder queen was pure and control mated (isolated mating station with known drones or II), your open mated queen is F0 and her progeny (your bees and daughter queens) F1.

 

[Anduril]

If thats the case I'll replace with another purchased queen, it's really a bit of test to see how it pans out.

Make sure you have more nurse bees in there than you need and the queen produced will be fine.

 

[SWEET]

Make sure you have more nurse bees in there than you need and the queen produced will be fine.

Thanks for that, I may take a frame from 3 hives.

 

[SDM]

Like others have said , it's a case of try it and see.
Ive sites where they'll be almost black by f2 but still nicely behaved and others where I know I can't let an f1 requeen itself as it'll turn psycho.

 

[Eyeman]

Thanks for that, I may take a frame from 3 hives.

This is a well populated nuc ready for queen rearing.

 

[bobba]

Thanks, as always for all the replies.
The guy I got the bees from said he has a Buckfast breeder queen. My queen was grafted from that hive and open mated. He had an apiary mostly populated by Buckfast, but he had a few hives of another race that begin with C, unfortunately I cannot remember which.

So, I guess there’s a chance they may be pure Buckfast, or they may already be crossed.

I get confused because F can refer to generation in a pure race or hybrids in crosses. However, no one seems to specify which they are talking about in the bee-sphere. I assume in bee-talk F refers to hybrids. Then the fact Bucks are a hybrid to start with confuses me more to whether the so-called pure breeder queens are technically F0 or F1.

So; you say we count a Buck breeder queen as F0. So, if my queen was crossed with some other race, she if F1, or is she was bread with other pure Buckfast, she is still F0? Have I got it right?

I am in Hampshire if that helps.

I am hoping to split my hive at the first opportunity, I hope to get to 3 hives. The idea being, if I loose one, I can split another and hopefully always keep one production hive running at full strength.

So; from what everyone is saying, there is a chance they can turn nasty, but it’s not guaranteed. And it depends partly on the surrounding populations. I relay don’t want to risk having nasty bees in my garden, so feel the cost of a new queen to lower that risk would be a worthwhile investment for me.

If I switched to another race say, Carniolan, Caucasian or Carpathian would I have a better prospect of gentle bees when producing my own open mated queens?

 

[Ian123]

Ok by the sound of it your queen is f1, open mated in Hampshire then even if the supplier is making an effort to produce drones in the area there will be plenty of other beekeepers who are not. The same applies to any race/strain.

 

[SWEET]

Hope you don't intend the two frame nuc to raise the queen. High chance of being a scrub queen.

Well, looked at the feral hive this morning and they have created a couple of queen cells (capped and nice and large), so instead of first idea i've taken a couple of frames + the queen cells and placed into a NUC leaving the old queen with the main hive, be interesting to see how it pans out.

 

[Beefriendly]

Like others have said , it's a case of try it and see.
Ive sites where they'll be almost black by f2 but still nicely behaved and others where I know I can't let an f1 requeen itself as it'll turn psycho.

Nail on head there.

 

[Repwoc]

So; you say we count a Buck breeder queen as F0. So, if my queen was crossed with some other race, she if F1, or is she was bread with other pure Buckfast, she is still F0? Have I got it right?

If the breeder queen was control mated (with Buckfast drones) then her progeny, ie your queen + sisters, are F0.

If your queen was open mated (crossed with some other strain/sub species), then her progeny (your bees and daughter queens) will be F1 hybrid.

Open mated F1 queens produce F2 hybrids, and so on.

 

[thorn]

Hello,
I have read that Buckfast bees can become vicious if the line is not kept pure.

It's an old wives' tale.
Someone has a buckfast queen whose successor turns bad. He posts about it. Someone else thinks "that rings a bell", and posts "me too". Eventually there may be about a dozen complaining of vicious buckfast bees, while the hundreds of us who haven't experienced a problem just get on with it.

 

[eltalia]

It's an old wives' tale.
Someone has a buckfast queen whose successor turns bad. He posts about it. Someone else thinks "that rings a bell", and posts "me too". Eventually there may be about a dozen complaining of vicious buckfast bees, while the hundreds of us who haven't experienced a problem just get on with it.

Holds true for pretty much any linebred genetics once reproduced down a few generations.
If it wasn't so we'd all be queen breeders and so that industry never have got off the ground!

Bill

 

[Erichalfbee]

Make sure you have more nurse bees in there than you need and the queen produced will be fine.

Agree with that
Two frame nucs ( a le Patterson) are fine. Shake a whole super of bees in and your laughing.