My Observation of the Buckfast Queen

[Chef Isaac]

I wanted to report my findings of the buckfast queen that I ordered from the Weavers. By no means do I think anything negative about their company or their queens as I know many things can hender the outcome of the queens preformance.

I requeened hive #8 which was a swarm with a marked buckfast queen in a medium brood box with wax foundation. I think I did this about a month or so ago. I checked on the activity of them for the first two weeks and noticed that they do not come out as early as the carnis and italians that I have. Than I thought something was wrong after the third week and I check inside. I found the queen but she was laying in a spotty pattern. I left her alone for another week or so until today. I went out to the bee yard and hive #8 was not flying at all while the rest of the hives were flying. So I decided to requeen her with a carni.

Maybe the buckfast queen was not "built" for this kinda climate. Lately, we have been having bad weather and temps in the 60's which is great for my caris and italians while it seemed not so good for my buckfast.

This is mt 2 cents worth of observations. I know other people have had great luck with buckfast queens and maybe I will try them next year. We will see.

[mark williams]

Not knowing anything first hand about the Buckfast,But I read that they work in cooler weather than the Italians.>>>>Mark

[tecumseh]

Got a couple of incidental question for you Chef Isaac. Well first off I had meant to ask you some time back, exactly what part of oregon do you reside? Do the hives you are comparing have equal provisions? Which Weaver did you use in acquiring the queen?

In difficult wether conditions (on and off cool wet weather) provision are often time the limiting factor in a hive. Even if the bees are flying a bit, often time only scant provision are coming in the front door. This limitation may be an especially severe problem for small hive and or nuc not only because of their relative small size in sheer number of bees, but also due to the age distribution in these type of units are very atypical from established hives.

In the final analysis laying pattern is an excellent primary criterion for determining whether a gueen is or is not acceptable.

[Chef Isaac]

Tecumseh:

I am located in the midle of Oregon give or take a little. The only thing that might be proving my obsservation wrong is that I tend to jump the gun a little. I could be more patient but I am moving soon and I am leaving my bees in Oregon for the rest of the summer and for a month or so into fall. I am leaving them with a friend of mine but it is important to me that I take care of all of the work so he doesnt have to. He runs his own bee yards.

So, since I noticed that non of the bees were flying at certain times of checking on the hives, I decided to requeen. A few things that are important to me when selcting and figuaring out if a queen needs to be replaced are (not in any particular order)

- brood pattern
- working conditions meaning do they come out at a certain degree of temprature. It is important in this area as we have lower temps than texas for example.
- work ability---hot/ nervous/ calm
- Honey production
- Hygenic behavior

ect

Like I said, I am not agaist using a buckfast queen. Maybe she was mated with a drone of undesirable characteristics. Maybe my needs at this time didnt allow her to get fully established. I do not know. I will try another buckfast maybe next year or so.

[jgmcbratney]

i have used all sorts of bees/queens for years some are good some are not what i desire what does one hive prove