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Buckfast Queens

20K views 65 replies 27 participants last post by  Michael Bush 
#1 ·
Hi all i see the string on Carnies.Just wondering what you all may think of the Buckfast.I am planning on requeening next spring.I know there will be some Carnies in there but a few in my area use buckfast.So i am just planning on what i want to do for queens next spring.Any ifo will be great.

Bob
 
#30 ·
I tried one Buckfast queens this past Spring and she took well but the hive is very hot. I can not walk within 10 feet of the hive without the guard bees coming on me. It is in the middle of my Carny yard. This is the only hive that I know will sting me when I work these hives. I have about 10 hives in this small yard and this is hte only one I have issues. It was also a low producer last year. Carny did well.
 
#32 ·
I have used Buckfast Queens for several years. I find that winter the best here on Cape Cod, MA. I love them but they come with an attitude that can take the fun out of working bees. I buy my stock from R Weaver or B Weaver. I had a friend tell me once that there is a miracle going on in Navasota, TX. That being that AHB was all through TX., but not in Navasota. At any rate I still have 10 hives with Buckfast Queens
 
#37 ·
I bought Buckfast queens from Weavers several times over the last 20 years. At no time did they conform completely to the Buckfast standard except one year about 1990 when they got just a few queens imported direct from Buckfast Abbey. That year, the bees were phenomenally productive and not a single one swarmed.

Since then, they have not kept up the selection pressure for the traits of non-swarming and gentleness to the best of my knowledge.

I started purchasing Buckfast queens from Davies Apiaries in Canada and got the traits that Buckfast are known for: Trachael mite tolerance, non-swarming, low propolis use, minimal brace comb, high production, gentle, etc.

I've raised my own replacement queens for the last several years with moderate success at maintaining the pure strain. If I feel they are drifting too much from expectations, I get new breeder queens from Canada. This year, I will be raising from a spectacular queen that exhibits almost no brace comb, produced a very good crop, is gentle and managable, and just finished her third productive season.

Re hot bees, it might help to review an article Steve Taber wrote a few years ago about stinging drones. Whats that you say? Drones don't sting? No but they do have a disproportionate influence on the stinging propensity of the workers they father. If a queen mates on average with 17 drones and just one of those drones carries the dominant traits for high stinging propensity, there will be enough "hot" bees in the hive to make them unmanagable.

Lots of people think the Africanized bee is a recent arrival to the U.S. but they were distributed throughout the U.S. back in the 1960's. They were rapidly diluted in the gene pool and had relatively little influence on the bees we have today. The historical records are there, just check with the Baton Rouge bee lab.

I've seen some really hot colonies over the years, if Africanized stock is any worse, I don't want it. One of them was so hot that I was stung over 100 times in less than a minute. A careful check of the bees revealed a smaller than normal size, 1 or 2 bands of yellowish orange on the abdomen, unusually agitated behavior on the comb and several other traits normally associated with Africanization. Yet this particular colony was in North Alabama in 1978.

Fusion
 
#39 ·
Yes Buckbee I had about the same as Fusion The Buckfast I got in the early 90s were great very high honey production,low propolis,wintered well and very long lived ...amazingly long lived compared to whats around now.Productive into 3-4 years which was nice because it ment I wasn't requeening every year.I got some Yugo's and tried to improve the mite resistance and loss almost all my hives (40).Then I went back to Weaver Buckfasts again and it was never the same.And I also delt with a very aggressive hive which was a real eye opener....This hive starved to death that winter...I complained to Weavers but was basicly blown off ..he claimed all I wanted was a free Queen the conversation never went anywhere...That was the last time I bought Buckfast queens ...Id really like to try these Buckfast queens from Davies Apiaries.
 
#40 ·
BUCKFAST:
Barry Davies
RR#1 Seeley's Bay. ON. CA
K0H 2N0
(613)387-3171
davapi@kos.net

BUCKFAST:
Rick Neilson
RR#1 Stratton. ON. CA
P0W 1N0

BUCKFAST:
Paul Montoux
RR#1 Hagerville. ON. CA
N0A 1H0
(905) 768-5530
mbees@sympatico.ca


Here is another link that has contact info.
http://www.gov.on.ca/OMAFRA/english/crops/facts/info_honeybeequeen.htm

One warning, you must reserve your bees early as in right now. They run out within another month or so. shipping dates are typically from June to about the first of September.

Barry Davies operation looks like it is being run by a gentleman named Geoff Wilson now.

Fusion
 
#42 ·
The US just passed a bunch of new regulations on importing queens from Canada. Most of the Canadian queen breeders will not be able to afford to meet all the requirements. I think Canadian queen being imported here may be a thing of the past thanks to excessive government intervention.
 
#43 ·
I'm not sure what additional costs Canadian bee
producers might face, as the "requirements" are
so minimal as to be no more than what any bee
producer would do as a normal part of their
business operation. As Canada already has
well-funded federal and provincial bee programs,
they are in much better shape than the US is in
light of the impact of complying with WTO requirements.

You can read my Bee Culture article in the January
2005 issue for the details on how the existing
system of state-level bee regulation in the US
is hurt by this, but I assure you that it is NOT
"excessive government intervention". The US has
no choice but to apply the WTO regs to all imports,
and to allow imports from NZ and Australia, even
though Canada has decided that they would rather
have US bees, as the quality and quantity of bees
they got from NZ and Australia did not satisfy
them.

The US is also forced to ask Canada to follow
the same rules as NZ and Australia, and who
knows who else. To not do so would be to "play
favorites", which would make NZ and Australia
whine and complain even more.

Their complaints would be valid in such a scenario.
It WOULD be "playing favorites", and the WTO
agreements simply do not allow such things.

Not to worry, the producers that export queens
from Canada may moan and groan and cry "unfair"
about something that is exactly fair under the
treaties both countries signed, but they are
sure to ship queens. They make good money at
selling queens, and the US is a "growth market"
for them.

As for the NZ and Australian bee producers,
all I can say is that schemes involving shipping
bees from the other side of the planet need only
the addition of "sharks with friggin laser beams
on their heads" to bring them up to the level of
low comedy.
 
#44 ·
Here is a quote from a Canadian queen producer:

" I have finished reading the new regulations regarding
the export of queens
to the US and the results do not bode well for 2005.
The regulations from the USDA and APHIS Federal
Registry, Vol 69 No.203
Oct 21 2004 states that we need an inspection health
certificate 10 days
before shipment, an export license issued by the
Canadian Food inspection,
the shipment has to go through a port of entry manned
by
an APHIS inspection agent, the importer has to apply
for a licence to
import, sign a document and return it to the APHIS
agent at the port of
entry days before the shipment arrives. If the
security of the package does
not measure up to a 'standard' then the shipment is
destroyed at the
shipper's expense. It goes on and on. Draconian to say
the least.
Regretfully, it would seem the trade protectionists
in the American
legislature have won again!! Canada bashing is getting
to be a way of life!
The American Honey Producers Assoc has been agitating
for many years to
'protect' the US bee business, from where I stand they
have succeeded in
cutting us out completely.
My previous business was ruined by the NAFTA
agreement (I think that should
be renamed, North American UNFAIR Trade Agreement) now
someone has taken
this business as well.
What does it all mean? Simply put, the legislation is
a mine field for the
small business queen breeders and so it is with a
heavy heart I have to
close down the US service queen supply, any monies
will be refunded, all
orders are cancelled.
David Eyre, The Bee Works"
 
#45 ·
sitting here reading this post made me wonder why nobody else in the USA deals with buckfast abbey for there queens to raise and sell, the weavers do or did but there surrounded by AHB, is it something or someone that you have to know to get these queens from buckfast abbey, with a bee so famous you would think there would be a few more people dealing with buckfast abbey and raising and selling these queens or am I missing something.
 
#47 ·
> we need an inspection health
> certificate 10 days before shipment

Yes, you do. How else would you know if you were
shipping disease-free and pest-free bees? Since
Canada has very few SPS/WTO "reportable" diseases
or pests, the list of things that one need inspect
for is very limited.

> Draconian to say the least.

Only if you have no disease/pest control program.
If you have no disease/pest control program, you
shouldn't be shipping bees anywhere, not even
between provinces within Canada.

> Regretfully, it would seem the trade protectionists
> in the American legislature have won again!!

This is a laughably misinformed foaming at the mouth.
First, no "American legislature" had anything to do
with the imposition of the new requirements. Both the
US and Canada are WTO participants, and their respective
WTO negotiators AGREED to these rules, likely without
every considering the impact on people who want to ship
live animals. The rules are less taxing when one is
shipping something that is not a living creature.

Second there is nothing "protectionist" in these regs.
They are imposed on shipments from Canada simply because
they MUST be imposed, or the US faces charges of showing
favoritism to Canada versus other countries that want to
ship bees to the USA.

> Canada bashing is getting to be a way of life!

Sorry, everything is not all about you.

The US had no choice in the matter, and if you had spoken
for even 5 minutes with anyone else who shipped goods from
Canada to the US, you might be able to learn a little about
how to export in the 21st Century. We can't have one set
of regulations for Canada, and another for everyone else.
No one can. We have WTO, NAFTA, and a pile of other trade
agreements, and none of them really work for the unique case
of shipping live bees. If you'd like to "fix it", I'd love
to help, but first you have to learn a bit about how the
current regulations work (and don't work well for bees).

When the US wants to "bash Canada", it is easy enough for one
of our hockey teams to take away the Stanley Cup for yet another
year. As I recall, last year it was a team from Florida, where
the skating rinks have to be painstakingly hand-assembled from
individual ice cubes ordered from room service. That must have
really hurt, eh?


If any bee producers in Canada want to get
serious about shipping bees, I am happy to
assist them - Lord knows I've done my homework
on this issue just to write articles about
the whole mess.

Some Buckfast bees that were closer to the
actual "Brother Adam" Buckfast bees would be
nice to have for many people, and the cold-tolerant
bees are very useful to beekeepers in the
Northern tier of US states.

But I can't help anyone who is so misinformed
to think that this was some sort of deliberate
plan to "bash Canada".
 
#48 ·
jfischer, If you will post the exact requirements to the best of your understanding and if you will assist in getting at least one queen producer in Canada set up to ship to the U.S. that is.

For my part, I will apply for an import license to bring a small number of Buckfast queens into the U.S. this year.

Are you up to it?

Fusion (you can contact me through my website http://www.selectedplants.com/)
 
#50 ·
> jfischer, If you will post the exact requirements
> to the best of your understanding and if you will
> assist in getting at least one queen producer in
> Canada set up to ship to the U.S. that is.

But you are not in Canada, are you?

Are you thinking of trying to become an "importer"?
Most exporters would simply ship direct to the
beekeeper ordering the queens, and would not
want to deal with a "middleman".

Anyway, the requirements are not something you can
satisfy. As a prospective importer, you are on
the receiving end, and it is the producer in
Canada who must provide certifications, get
testing done by qualified inspectors, set up
tracking and record-keeping for periodic
inspections, etc.

In short, the party who has the mating nucs
is the one that must do the paperwork, and
must be able to prove that the claims made
in the paperwork are both accurate and truthful
when audited or inspected.
 
#51 ·
I understood that jfischer, I do in fact know at least one "qualified" queen producer in Canada. I also know one person in aphis who is an inspector at a port of entry for the U.S. I also know one person who is tied into the effort in the Canadian government to achieve compliance with all the many recently implemented "rules" albeit she is more interested in the plant and seed related aspects. It wouldn't take much to put something in place to make this feasible and workable!

I am asking you to provide a short sweet list here on this forum of the requirements for the queen producer and details on what I as a queen importer must do. I don't need many queens in the first place. If beekeepers are to be saddled with riding this horse, I figure we might as well get a bridle on him.

An example of what I need:

Who has to inspect the bees at the queen producers end?
What specific pests/diseases should they look for?
How often do they have to be inspected (presume monthly shipments to the U.S.)?
What are the valid "port of entry" locations with an aphis inspector?

From my end, how do I apply for an import license?
Who would I send it to?
Put names, people, and places into this discussion.

Fusion
 
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