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Best place to get some Buckfast queens???

18K views 25 replies 12 participants last post by  William Bagwell  
#1 ·
Hello,

Looking to buy some buckfast queens for my apiary and nucs in southern WV. I know weaver in texas has some but have heard they are hot... Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!
 
#3 ·
Depends on how many you want. Ferguson Apiaries in Canada is a decent source. With the difference between U.S. and Canadian dollars, it works out a tad over $30 per queen. There is about $95 in fees to cross the border. You can get 10 queens for $400 or thereabouts.
 
#6 ·
Thanks for sharing that source. I'm going to need to re-queen two hives and split both of them. (Four new Queens) Before I commit to making them all Buckfast...let me ask you.. How did they work for you? I was finding varied information about Buckfast hives that re-queen themselves becoming aggressive. How has your experience been?
 
#10 ·
If you choose to purchase from New River Honey Bees, stay up late New Years eve and be online at 12:01 am. Last year he was sold out of almost everything by 6 am. I am trying again this year to get his New River Caucasians. Did not realize how fast they would go last year!
 
#11 ·
If you choose to purchase from New River Honey Bees, stay up late New Years eve and be online at 12:01 am.
Thanks for the tip! They are reasonably close so might be my best source for diversity next year. Inquired a few weeks ago at a dealer for VP Queen Bees (Ridge top Apiaries) and not heard back yet. New River seems to have a lot more to chose from. Oh, "2021 Pre-orders will open on our web-store on Jan. 5th at 9pm est." so no late night needed.
 
#12 ·
Thank you. Did not look at the preorder info for 2021. Going by last year's preorder date and time. Still they sold out very quickly. I got on a waiting list but was never contacted.
 
#14 ·
It seems odd to me that there are few, if any, that have had good, lasting experiences with Buckfast hives. I have two mutt hives now that swing widely in defensiveness I had a two year old Italian VHS queen stop laying eggs in my third hive. I was wanting to try something different but. Wildflower Meadow's VHS Inseminated Italian has been the best so far. I will have four hives ready for new queens as soon as the first batch is ready to ship. Thanks to all of you for all the great input. I hope others will benefit from this discussion as well. Merry Christmas to Everyone!
 
#17 ·
It seems odd to me that there are few, if any, that have had good, lasting experiences with Buckfast hives. I have two mutt hives now that swing widely in defensiveness I
You have MUTTS as you say (and in TX with Africanized Bees present )so you can not in all honesty you the Buckfast as bad. Or good for that matter.
I have Buckfast Mutts and they are nice bees. My 1st nuc I got was a wild bred queen from pure Buckfast queen. My other 2 hives came from her.
Will see what Spring holds but that 1st Queen was a Great layer this past Spring
 
#15 ·
I am a little late posting on this subject, but I wanted to say that I used Buckfast from Canada for a number of years and I had excellent results from them. I never had supersedure queens that were cross, in fact, the cross of Buckfast with Russian became my best honey producers and were very docile. The Buckfast were healthy and had better than average varroa resistance than the Italians of that time period. I stopped using them because the cost became more than I could afford.

Any bee from Texas I would be cautious with due to the amount of African they could have in them. I have bought bees from Navasota twice in the past 10 years and had to replace them do to aggressive behavior. I live in a subdivision and can't afford to have a stinging incident.
 
#16 ·
Jason with NewRiverHoneybees is changing his web orders this year to allow more people to get his stock (which is great, by the way). He is not doing the Jan 1 thing anymore but only putting some items on Jan 6, and will continue to load more inventory as the weeks go by. I purchased Buckfast from New River Honeybees as well as Hooterville in MI.
 
#19 ·
I truly appreciate the heads up on ordering from New River. I think I have decided to order from Wildflower Meadows. They have a VSH Italian Queen that is inseminated with select stock. I have one now (2yrs old) and she was my best producer this year I will need six queens this spring. The Buckfast will be far more expensive. Thanks for the information.
 
#21 ·
William, I just posted in the "Today in the Apiary" sub-forum about how fast Jason sold out of this week's allotment of production queens. I had to open up another page at 9:01 because the one I had opened earlier and was waiting with would not allow me to click on the add to cart button once 9:00 rolled around. Weird. I did manage to order the two NR Caucasian production queens I wanted. As of now, he still has Buckfast II breeder queens available for $500 each. Not a bad deal if you plan on making more than 8 production queens with her.
 
#23 ·
I'm a few years away from trying a breeder queen... Think it was 9:08 when I first got in on my phone and all production queens were sold out. Still virgins available at 9:20. Wife wants ankle biters so we will try on her Windows box next round.
 
#24 ·
I will be making F1 queens from the II Buckfast I bought from Jason. I really like his line, I've bought mated or virgin production queens from him for a couple of years. Super gentle and fun to work. Send me a message in June 2021 and I'll let you know if I've gotten her yet. As soon as she starts laying, I will be grafting and making queen cells from her line.
I'm really interested in pursing how to move around (and ship) the 2 day old queen cell. I had the logistics all worked out for our 2020 state beekeepers meeting that was to be held in my hometown, but Covid nixed that meeting.
 
#25 ·
A few years ago had the opportunity to buy Fuerguson BUCKFAST queens from Canada. Really like them BUT when they crossed with some of the other bees the outcome was mean and nasty bees.
 
#26 · (Edited)
Totally forgot to try last Sunday. Was ready tonight and think I just ordered two queens? Let me go through the order processes but at the end showed both as sold out. No order confirmation yet so I'm not sure.

(Edit) Nope, was too slow or something. Just got an email that I had left items in my cart.