Buckfast queen

01 · YES, THEY COME MATED

It is the most repeated question

These are mated, laying queens, not virgins and not cells. Mating is by open flight in an area saturated with drones from directed rearing: not instrumental insemination and not an isolated mating station, but flooding the area with the genetics you want.

Before dispatch the laying pattern is checked and any queen without a compact one is discarded. She travels in a cage with a few attendant workers and candy: no brood.

02 · WHAT IS SELECTED

And what does not pass to the next generation

The Buckfast line is selected for gentleness, low swarming tendency, good laying and hygienic behaviour. What you buy is that queen, and her workers will reflect that selection.

What is worth knowing beforehand, because it is the classic disappointment: if you later raise daughters from her and let them mate with your own local drones, the following generation can come out considerably more defensive. The selection does not carry itself; it is kept by buying or by rearing with control over the mating.

03 · WHAT GENETICS DOES NOT DO

Hygienic behaviour is not immunity

A colony with good hygienic behaviour spots and removes affected brood sooner, and it shows. But that is not the same as resisting a disease: no genetics replaces varroa control or the health calendar.

Buying a selected queen improves the starting point. The follow-up stays the same.

04 · THE INTRODUCTION

This is where queens are lost, not in transit

The hive has to be queenless before she arrives: remove the old queen and give the colony some hours to notice. The new one goes in in her cage, with the candy plug in place, and it is the bees that release her by eating through it.

Do not release her by hand and do not open the hive to look the next day. Leave it five to seven days and check then that there are eggs. Opening earlier is the commonest way to lose a queen who had already been accepted.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This is live material and seasonal: you buy when queens are available and when the hive is ready to take one.