What type queen, do you prefer

[wightbees]

What have you tried and what do and dont you like ,with reasons why please.
Do you let them end up as a local cross or do you buy in again after a few yrs Or do you use F1 F2 then buy in again.
I have tried BF and am very happy with them but to be fair i have not tried much other than local cross in the short time i have been keeping bees.

 

[For want of a better word]

Own experience has lead me to the conclusion that buying in bees bred from a localised strain of queen is better than buying in a queen from far far away and bringing in genes that can turn out to make for hungry store consuming, swarmy, pinging ******* from hell!

Visit the breeder and ask from where his or her queens were sourced... home bred or paddy-bagged in from far far away?
Look at the mother hive... ask questions and expect straightforward answers, if seller is not being helpful... walk away !"

I once bought a Carniolian queen from a breeder far far away and regretted introducing their gene into our local pool of BuckielikegettingtowardsAMMs via the prolific number of drones the queen produced.

Back on with TIN HAT to receive all the flack from the importers and breeders....

Perhaps there should be bee exclusion zones similar to the fisheries exclusion zones except for NO BRING IN as opposed to NO TAKE ?

IMHO BA's Buckfast bee is long long gone..... possibly similar hybrididasiations with similar traits may be around.... like NewZealans that are Italian Linguista sailed around the planet to Hawaii and back..... bit like Cheddar Cheese!

My honest suggestion to newbeeks is buy local..

 

[REDWOOD]

A queen that is a good forager, gentle, good spring build up, resistant to diseases, good housekeepers, and reluctant to swarm. "know of any"

 

[For want of a better word]

A queen that is a good forager, gentle, good spring build up, resistant to diseases, good housekeepers, and reluctant to swarm. "know of any"

​

I do... but the problem seems to be keeping things that way ... with all those foreign genes being imported by newbeekeeperers desperate for an early NUC !

 

[REDWOOD]

May is early enough for a nuc and still get 30lbs of honey from a local bee breeder

 

[justme]

i agree with icanhopit.

 

[BBG]

A queen that is a good forager, gentle, good spring build up, resistant to diseases, good housekeepers, and reluctant to swarm. "know of any"

Buckfast

The Queen won't do any foraging but her offspring will do all of the above.

Reluctant to swarm - depends on how you manage them.

 

[REDWOOD]

Buckfast

The Queen won't do any foraging but her offspring will do all of the above.

Reluctant to swarm - depends on how you manage them.

Yes you are quite right the queens don't do much foraging !!!!! and some queens are more acceptable to swarming than others

 

[Stiffy]

What works for me might not work for you though but here goes
Had Carnolian- result too swarmy and produced more bees than honey
Had MM including local – result too lazy, feisty and same with second generation

Have Buckfast (from good source) - result work hard, easy to work with and reluctant to swarm. Only reared 6 queens late last year and traits are still very similar to originals

S

 

[Tom Bick]

I started off with what I now assume was Carnolian swarmed all over the place and then turned into a nasty lot. Never again and nor would I recommend them.

A beekeeping buddy has NS Italians and loves them I don’t like them partly reputation but mostly the colour they don’t look like bees to me but what you have to do to get one even to think about stinging you is beyond me. They make for clumsy beekeeping as you can virtually throw the frames around. But we also know what can happen one or two generations down the road then they will sting for pleasure.

For me it has to be Buckfast from a breeder if you have a hive in a location and the bees have to be on their best behaviour or Buckfast type as in local queen with one hope’s Buckfast traits for general apiary locations.

 

[REDWOOD]

Buckfast seems to pop up all the time, Brother Adam spent decades breeding what he called the perfect bee that beekeepers all over the world love. I have a Buckfast Cycropia queen in one hive and I have no problem with her, they lie very dormant in the winter and build up very fast in the spring, very gentle and easy to work with, the only bad trait is they do consume lots of honey between flows, the real test is this year if they get swarmy

 

[For want of a better word]

Buckfast bees do not exist.....

Perhaps a trait that was established in the second half of the last century by a monk who was ensconced at a certain abbey in the parish of Buckfast in Devon may be eluded to.
According to Taber if the so called Buckfast genetic bee line been maintained by true II selected breeder queens and selected son drones, the line would have vanished in but a few generations since the egg laying capabilities and genetically induced death rate would have lead to failure of the line.

Bit like my Triumph Sprint motorcycle... built in the UK... fantastic bike to own, but bares no resemblance to the Meriden manufactured Triumph Trident I owned in the seventies!... except it has 2 wheels three cylinders and turns heads.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

I've 2 buckfast queens (even if they dont exist!) from two different breeders, and one local mongrel. Out of the three much prefer working with the well mannered buckfasts although the mongrels are showing signs of improvement.

 

[Stiffy]

Buckfast bees do not exist.....

induced death rate would have lead to failure of the line.

Bit like my Triumph Sprint motorcycle... built in the UK... fantastic bike to own, but bares no resemblance to the Meriden manufactured Triumph Trident I owned in the seventies!... except it has 2 wheels three cylinders and turns heads.

Good analogy Buckfast bees and motorbikes!
Old motorbikes were very nice to listen to but were unreliable, leaked all over the place, wouldn’t start and then when going wouldn’t stop. A bit like failure to mate, susceptible to disease, lazy and swarmy
Refinements have made bikes that are a pleasure to ride, reliable, and have brakes that work. A little like BA bees that have been improved by serious breeders until we have a bee that suits a lot of people and is fairly reliable.
S

 

[madasafish]

People go on about local bees as the bees knees.

I have had more stings from our local Association bees than from my own, they do more running on combs and do a lot more following..

It's like saying keep racehorses but breed from UK stock and ignore those imported fancy Arab horses.

I always thought UK beekeeping was backward looking: it largely is.

 

[rae]

We started with two queens from a bee supplier in Glos (M the Bee). They were both good queens, one slightly tetchier than the other, but OK. Hardworking, good build up and swarmed in a fairly predictable fashion once a year.

We got three Buckfasts in (got the breeders name, forgotten it right now, somewhere near Bedford) late last year. All three made it through the winter (was very worried about 1 as it was about 1 frame of bees in November), and so far they are very gentle and pleasant to work with. We will see if they are hardworking.

Local bees - it depends what you get. The most local bees to us were given to us by a retiring beek, who admitted that he hadn't seen the queen for quite some while. They were the most bad tempered bees I have ever had the misfortune to work with, if we had been exposed to them at the beginning, I would have given up beekeeping. We killed that particular queen 10 days ago, rubbed out her emergency daughters on Friday, and merged them with the small buckfast colony yesterday.

 

[Ely]

Haven't got a clue what my queens are. Ok though

 

[Excession]

Buckfast bees do not exist.....

Perhaps a trait that was established in the second half of the last century by a monk who was ensconced at a certain abbey in the parish of Buckfast in Devon may be eluded to.
According to Taber if the so called Buckfast genetic bee line been maintained by true II selected breeder queens and selected son drones, the line would have vanished in but a few generations since the egg laying capabilities and genetically induced death rate would have lead to failure of the line.

Bit like my Triumph Sprint motorcycle... built in the UK... fantastic bike to own, but bares no resemblance to the Meriden manufactured Triumph Trident I owned in the seventies!... except it has 2 wheels three cylinders and turns heads.

The Buckfast Beekeeping Group (google for their site)

These chaps seem to disagree, saying Buckfast are not a hybrid so genetically stable.

I wouldn't know, but find it interesting to stimulate the debate!

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Bees need to fit in the local 'bee' environment - if at all possible - so mating doesn't result in suicidal nutters being produced. Select from your best, don't buy in and you'll get something that works for you over time.

 

[Skyhook]

Bees need to fit in the local 'bee' environment - if at all possible - so mating doesn't result in suicidal nutters being produced. Select from your best, don't buy in and you'll get something that works for you over time.

True if you've got 50 hives. I suspect that my couple of hives are going to have so little impact on the local drone population that I can have very lttle influence on my next generation.