Can you do a future video of these colonies after they have been re-housed, overwintered, and are full-size colonies next June....? I believe you will get a better indication of their temperament then.. Also, I believe you need to explain that 'Buckfast' queens are hybrids, they are not a pure race of bees.. There's nothing wrong with hybrids, it's just harder to maintain their good qualities going forward.
What people don't remember is the the original Buckfast bee was a mongrel bred by Brother Adam in an isolated area of Devon, where he had control of the drone population. It isn't appropriate to discuss F1 or lower mongrels, because of open mating of queens. Yes, some supposed Buckfast bees produce calm colonies, but some produce incredibly aggressive colonies.
I for 1 think for this test you should have been suitless and taken a frame out of each colony haha so hopefully challenge accepted and I'll get some popcorn in an await the video 😄 great with the 8 out of 8 though and sorry to hear about the efb keep it up 💪
F2 is a gamble when it comes to how aggressive they will be. It's not because of bee, it's because Queen mates with unknows type of drones. You got lucky to have same genetic drones in the area.
i like to keep buckfast,6 years in row. if you have enough drones from your buckfast f1 queen its good or acceptable,but if they just receive drones from wild bees Amms or other types escapees from unattended apiary, the same year they are gentle,but 105% next year its nightmare. towards your thinking its not always let them naturally breed,but "clows show up next year" believe me or not,same year when queen was mated show up very promising ,but next year becomes a nightmare,just open the hive ,your face its attack in full scale
Hey bud I've been told by a queen breeder that it takes 5 years of drone saturation of an area to breed simular genes that is required . Cheers Dan from Aussie land 🍻🍻
Hi Laurence mate, I’ve got a colony at my work place apiary 3rd generation supposedly her grandmother was a F1 buckfast queen bought from a reputable breeder mother and daughter where exellent but this 3rd generation queen and her bees are horrible, every time I inspect them I have like half the colony in my face and gloves bumping and stinging me and when I’m finished inspecting them they follow me all over the yard I can lock myself in the office and see them out of the window in their hundreds banging into the window and flying around the door until say after a good 1/2 hour starting to disperse back to their hive, I’m definitely requeening I glad they are out in the countryside I’d hate to have them at my home apiary. I’ve had a couple of horrible colonies over the years but this hive takes the biscuit.
When it comes to agressive colonies here is some thing else that seriously needs looking into. There are commercial sellers selling Dark Honey Bees as so called Native. They are not native at all. They are often aggressive dark bees imported from the continent, These mix with the real native ones and they become super aggresive almost as aggressive as African Bees and attack in big numbers. This then gives the Dark bees a bad reputation. Of them drones mate with a Buckfast queen. Could easily turn the colony aggressive. 30 years ago it was un heard of but now many buckfast colonies turn dark. All thanks to them imports of aggressive so called natives. 3rd generation bee keeper. Been around bees sinse the age of 3 years old. Some of our colonies can be traced back to the 70s and look pretty much the same as they did back then. Very fiesty bees and quick to defend the hive but easy to handle.
Out of interest, what date did the F2 queen start to lay and what date was the video taken? I’m asking because unless considerable time has gone by, the majority of the bees will be from the F1 queen.
To many beek Keepers kill all their Drones and remove all the drone comb etc What do you expect to happen. Calling them free loaders etc, Drones are an important part of a colony, They not just for breeding and preserving the queens genetics, They also help with keeping the colony warm. I have drones in my colonies 365 days of the year. If you have colonies with good genetics then leave the drones alone. Guess what? No more bees turning aggressive when the area is filled with top quality drones from good hives.
Can you do a future video of these colonies after they have been re-housed, overwintered, and are full-size colonies next June....? I believe you will get a better indication of their temperament then.. Also, I believe you need to explain that 'Buckfast' queens are hybrids, they are not a pure race of bees.. There's nothing wrong with hybrids, it's just harder to maintain their good qualities going forward.
That hive is awesome, with the divider in there. That is just what I need.
My F45 mongrels do just fine, I just have a really, really good suit. 😄
Haha! Sounds like an expensive Mercedes :D
What people don't remember is the the original Buckfast bee was a mongrel bred by Brother Adam in an isolated area of Devon, where he had control of the drone population. It isn't appropriate to discuss F1 or lower mongrels, because of open mating of queens. Yes, some supposed Buckfast bees produce calm colonies, but some produce incredibly aggressive colonies.
I for 1 think for this test you should have been suitless and taken a frame out of each colony haha so hopefully challenge accepted and I'll get some popcorn in an await the video 😄 great with the 8 out of 8 though and sorry to hear about the efb keep it up 💪
F2 is a gamble when it comes to how aggressive they will be. It's not because of bee, it's because Queen mates with unknows type of drones. You got lucky to have same genetic drones in the area.
i like to keep buckfast,6 years in row.
if you have enough drones from your buckfast f1 queen its good or acceptable,but if they just receive drones from wild bees Amms or other types escapees from unattended apiary, the same year they are gentle,but 105% next year its nightmare.
towards your thinking its not always let them naturally breed,but
"clows show up next year"
believe me or not,same year when queen was mated show up very promising ,but next year becomes a nightmare,just open the hive ,your face its attack in full scale
This was interesting, thank you.
Hey bud I've been told by a queen breeder that it takes 5 years of drone saturation of an area to breed simular genes that is required . Cheers Dan from Aussie land 🍻🍻
Hi Laurence mate, I’ve got a colony at my work place apiary 3rd generation supposedly her grandmother was a F1 buckfast queen bought from a reputable breeder mother and daughter where exellent but this 3rd generation queen and her bees are horrible, every time I inspect them I have like half the colony in my face and gloves bumping and stinging me and when I’m finished inspecting them they follow me all over the yard I can lock myself in the office and see them out of the window in their hundreds banging into the window and flying around the door until say after a good 1/2 hour starting to disperse back to their hive, I’m definitely requeening I glad they are out in the countryside I’d hate to have them at my home apiary. I’ve had a couple of horrible colonies over the years but this hive takes the biscuit.
When it comes to agressive colonies here is some thing else that seriously needs looking into. There are commercial sellers selling Dark Honey Bees as so called Native. They are not native at all. They are often aggressive dark bees imported from the continent, These mix with the real native ones and they become super aggresive almost as aggressive as African Bees and attack in big numbers. This then gives the Dark bees a bad reputation. Of them drones mate with a Buckfast queen. Could easily turn the colony aggressive. 30 years ago it was un heard of but now many buckfast colonies turn dark. All thanks to them imports of aggressive so called natives. 3rd generation bee keeper. Been around bees sinse the age of 3 years old. Some of our colonies can be traced back to the 70s and look pretty much the same as they did back then. Very fiesty bees and quick to defend the hive but easy to handle.
Out of interest, what date did the F2 queen start to lay and what date was the video taken? I’m asking because unless considerable time has gone by, the majority of the bees will be from the F1 queen.
About 9 weeks
What gloves you wearing please. Dbl thickness?
out of curiousity whats wrong with blue gloves please ?
Bees dont like dark colours.
Brother Adam would be proud
To many beek Keepers kill all their Drones and remove all the drone comb etc What do you expect to happen. Calling them free loaders etc, Drones are an important part of a colony, They not just for breeding and preserving the queens genetics, They also help with keeping the colony warm. I have drones in my colonies 365 days of the year. If you have colonies with good genetics then leave the drones alone. Guess what? No more bees turning aggressive when the area is filled with top quality drones from good hives.