The Buckfast strain?

[Poly Hive]

A quickie please.

Is there currently any Amm in the strain and was there initially?

PH

 

[Brian Bush]

My Understanding of the strain is that it contains considerable proportions of AMM and AML. Brother Adam added bits from other subspecies including some from the slopes of Mt Kenya in Africa. I believe he favoured the French strain of AMM. It was the survival of bees with large amount of AML during the 'Isle of Wight disease' outbreak that led him to believe that using AML was the way forward.

 

[B+.]

A quickie please.

Is there currently any Amm in the strain and was there initially?

PH

The Buckfast bee appears to be different things to different people so I think thats a very difficult question to answer. There doesn't appear to be much, if any, in modern Buckfast lines.

 

[Beefriendly]

Is there currently any Amm in the strain and was there initially?

Yes, the original stock breeders were 1/2 Italian 1/2 Amm. Many other crosses with other stains occurred over the years. The current amount of Amm genes remaining in the various lines would need testing at the molecular level

 

[Hunajavelho]

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 (Macedonica/cecropia)
Iran (Meda)
Russian (Primorsky)
Kangaroo island (ligurica)
Caucasian, Carniolan, Carpathica
Sicilian (Sicula)
and the list goes on and on...

new lines go through selection and usually after 10 years of combination breeding are accepted into the so called Buckfast strain.

 

[Beefriendly]

Good link, but it's not mainly Anatolian (Turkish bee).
I quote.
"1918 - 1919 :
The required queens were raised from stock that survived the epidemic. Among the queens raised in 1919 was one that embodied all the desirable qualities of the Ligurian and former Native in an ideal combination. Indeed this particular queen was duly registered as Breeder No. B-1 and the progenitor of the present-day strain.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Brother Adam used Alec Gales French Amm breeders in his breeding during the years of 1930/32/33/34/35/36/37/38/39/40/41/42/43/44/50 couple of the later ones were other French Amm.

 

[Hunajavelho]

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

 

[Beefriendly]

That was only for the year 1962.

 

[B+.]

Brother Adam used Alec Gales French Amm breeders in his breeding during the years of 1930/32/33/34/35/36/37/38/39/40/41/42/43/44/50 couple of the later ones were other French Amm.

I'm not clear whether the original Buckfasts had Amm in them. I understood that they were a ligustica mellifera cross. Can you shed any light on this?

 

[Finman]

.
Good heavens! History of Buckfast matings!

 

[Hunajavelho]

That was only for the year 1962.

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

 

[Beefriendly]

I'm not clear whether the original Buckfasts had Amm in them. I understood that they were a ligustica mellifera cross. Can you shed any light on this?

All the details of Br.Adams successful crosses are freely available on line. Although sometime difficult to fully understand they capture the history of the generation of Buckfast bees and all the lines and strains used in its improvement. Other licensed Buckfast breeders have taken on these lines and bred to his standards. Their records and crosses are also all freely available on line as well.

I've already provided a quote in this thread (from his breeding records) that shows the starting point was the "old English Bee" x Italian. HM has provide more crosses involving French Amm's.
It is a designer Bee, originally bred in England.

 

[Beefriendly]

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

Sinop is only one of many Buckfast lines that were in development.
Yes Anatolica dominates in that line, but it's only one of several Buckfast lines.

An interesting insight into the original surviving Buckfast lines is from Denmark, which lists 15 different lines in various stages of development and improvement which were saved and removed from B.Abbey before/after his death?. I'm sure HM can fill in a lot more details about these various lines.

 

[Fusion_power]

B+, please look carefully at the information provided. AMm is Mellifera Mellifera, aka the European dark bee. Brother Adam praised the thrift, wintering, comb building, and foraging traits of the English brown bee which was one part of the cross that survived trachea mites. Making a best estimate of how much remains in the bee today would suggest between 10 and 25 percent. This is based on positive selection for traits over a number of years. He incorporated anatolian bees and then saharan queens into his breeding lines. Most of his later work from 1987 forward was not fully integrated into the breeding lines before he had to retire from active work.

Of the 28 recognized subspecies of western honeybee, Brother Adam worked with about 20 at one time or another. Buckfast bees are primarily derived from five of them. A few of the traits obtained from each geographic race are listed. There were many more traits that he documented.

Mellifera - wintering, foraging, comb building, thrift
Ligustica - disease and pest resistance, large colonies, nectar preferred vs honeydew
Cecropia - non-swarming
Anatoliaca - thrift, foraging, and wintering
Saharensis - larger colonies, reduced number of drones, foraging further

 

[Hunajavelho]

Sinop is only one of many Buckfast lines that were in development.
Yes Anatolica dominates in that line, but it's only one of several Buckfast lines.

An interesting insight into the original surviving Buckfast lines is from Denmark, which lists 15 different lines in various stages of development and improvement which were saved and removed from B.Abbey before/after his death?. I'm sure HM can fill in a lot more details about these various lines.

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.

Www.Buckfast.biz (Carsten Dalbol)has some interesting info. He has gathered together old buckfast lines. Frans Fahrenbach is another.

EDIT:
I did not notice you had the same link in the text.
There it is even quoted about the specific sinop line.

 

[Hunajavelho]

Making a best estimate of how much remains in the bee today would suggest between 10 and 25 percent. This is based on positive selection for traits over a number of years. He incorporated anatolian bees and then saharan queens into his breeding lines. Most of his later work from 1987 forward was not fully integrated into the breeding lines before he had to retire from active work.

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). With it's disinclination to swarm and in combination with Buckfast strain a superior honeybee.

Today there is one line that has a pedigree going back to the second world war.

Brother Adams later work that was not integrated in his time has been intergrated today by such as Paul Jungels, Thomas Rueppel, Eugen Neuhauser, Keld Brandstrup whi continued the work according to his principles and learnings.

Please all look at the pedigrees of the Buckfast-lines of modern time.
http://perso.fundp.ac.be/~jvandyck/homage/elver/index.html

 

[Hunajavelho]

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 http://perso.fundp.ac.be/~jvandyck/homage/elver/pedgr/ped_BA_1974.html There you can see that this is the first year the anatolian comination was to be called Buckfast after a 10 year development.

and it continues.

 

[B+.]

B+, please look carefully at the information provided. AMm is Mellifera Mellifera, aka the European dark bee.

Thank you FP...you have a gift for stating the obvious

 

[Curley]

.
Good heavens! History of Buckfast matings!

Absolutely- and this afternoon they will slip on their anoraks and do a bit of train spotting(if anything is running)

the depth of knowledge displayed is breathtaking!