Buckfast Bee
Lexikon
The Buckfast bee is not a subspecies but a breeding strain.
The Buckfast bee is not a subspecies but a breeding strain. It was founded by Karl Kehrle, known as Brother Adam, at Buckfast Abbey in England. The starting point was the collapse of the native Dark Bee due to a disease at the start of the twentieth century. Kehrle crossed surviving Dark Bees with Italian queens and afterward worked in further stock over decades.
The breeding principle is called combination breeding: traits from different stocks are deliberately brought together, and the cross is then fixed over several generations. The Buckfast bee is therefore defined by its beekeeping traits and not by its appearance. Chiefly cited are gentleness, low swarming tendency and high yield.
In Germany it competes with the Carniolan bee, which is the widespread stock across large parts of the German-speaking region. Over the decades this competition has led to sometimes bitter disputes; in Austria there is even state law restricting the keeping of stock other than the Carniolan bee. Anyone choosing a stock should therefore take into account not only the traits but also the mating stations and breeding structures in their region.