I appreciate your point concerning price, as they are not cheap (particularly the Danish)
However, I cannot agree with your comments relating to overwintering and honey production - one of my Danish imports from last year brooding in a double National hive has filled three National brood box supers and has pretty much supplied itself with stores for winter, pre full-on ivy flow too.
I understand our regional variations though.
I did not make any observations about the wintering.
However, as you raise the issue, the only actual figures definitely and clearly recorded were for the co-op unit in Scotland last year.....and btw these were started from 2lb packages on nothing but foundation (no brood or anything) in early May. Winter loss was less than 2%, (2 lost from 188 into winter) and those were ones that ran to queenless (probably beekeeper fault). They were given 2 gallons of invert syrup after the season, and less than half took it all, the remainder polishing it off during and after winter.
Even in that situation, with only foundation, many gave the best part of a box of clover before the heather, and from one to four (ave about 2) boxes of pure Ling on the mountains. A box is a full langstroth deep btw, so a lot bigger than a National. Most of them drew out four or five full boxes of foundation in the season.
Overwintered in Aberdeenshire (so harsh) without fault, and with very low stores consumption. Went off like a rocket in the spring and in conditions where our natives were really struggling (most did nil) hauled in a couple of deeps of OSR. Then the weather broke here and we went *13 weeks* with no nectar and no pollen worth speaking about. However these bees are not the swarmy stuff you expect from relatively unselected carniolans (although even the worst were unlike our own. If you want to see swarmy you should see 'iberica' or 'sicula'.)
This years ones down south were started from 1.9lb of bees, again on new gear, and by the time of their heather move they had averaged 1.5 Lang deeps of clover/lime. Heather season been grim generally in home range, but where these bees were put they have done from 1 to 3 full deeps of heather again, like last year. The Aberdeenshire ones went to an area where there has been no flow this year, and all bees alike have done very little indeed at the heather, they had little chance as it did not start to flower there until the last week of August and the weather has been terrible ever since. Even so..........they have done their best and have about double the amount the local bees have dragged in. All deeps in all hives of the kinds of bees we currently have are heavy.
I await the ivy flow in Hereford with some anticipation. Its a thing I have never seen, as we just do not get it at all up here.
One of the things that muddies the waters a bit making comparisons is the tghing in your post 'one of my'...often changed to 'some of my' with others. this is actually interesting, but nothing more, its average that counts. We all have 'one of my' or 'some of my' colonies with remarkable harvests, even in poor years.
Back to the buckfast bee. Every breeders Buckfast is a different beast. I have never hasd even one Buckfast strain that, when trialled up here, was worth giving long term houseroom to. (The only possible exception to this are the near black Buckfasts out of Luxembourg which were very good bees, but failed to breed consistent worthwhile progeny when outcrossing.) The several Danish bees we trialled all did very nicely in spring, and were very easy to work. However they then plateaued and the local bees went past them. Their food requirement was very high, and the only way to kick them out of their mid season lull was with syrup.
The figures given by Denmark about how their bees do bears a lot of close scrutiny and should not be taken at face value. The average syrup input to a hive in Denmark is scary compared to here, and those who are strictly honest about it tell of 40 to 70....even (rarely but have had it said to me) at times up to 100 kilos of syrup into their hives per season. the annual harvest tends not to be very much higher than syrup input. I could have a fabulous harvest every year if I put even 50Kg of syrup into my bees but we run at an average of about 20Kg per annum (14Kg for winter feed, due in part to foundation replacement in the nest previously mentioned, and only about 50% of the hives need a further feed in spring.) you can tell how they work when one of the original marketing strands for Ambrosia was 'its not detectable in honey, so use this and really start to make money'. (Not true btw, its easily detectable and always has been, just that the tests to look for it were not done in Denmark but are sometimes done here.) On top of the syrup input they also need fondant through dearths to keep the bees going.
Your 'one of' statement about your Danish bees is, in itself, unremarkable, however if your average is anywhere approaching that then you have good stock there that bears further scrutiny.
