> The problem arises when hobby beekeepers "rescue" feral swarms and keep
> them in populated neighborhoods.  The colonies can be worked barehanded
> when small, or when conditions are favorable.

My brother and I had Canadian Buckfast bees at first. About 1994.We bought
several nics from the late Paul Montoux. He made up our nucs with shorts and
shortsleeves and a baseball cap on.  My brother and I worked our bees with
no beesuits---only a little smoke. We were new to beekeeping then.  We each
got a few stings in the Autumn when taking the honey supers off. A few years
later, our Buckfast bees requeened themselves. and the bees were vicious! It
was almost impossible for us to requeen with bred queens. The colonies were
very hard to work with. When Paul M added new genetic material from England
to his colonies, he was working his bees with a full beesuit. We bought some
more nucs from him, but the bees were nothing like what we had experienced
before.  Br Adam had introduced some African bees into his mix.  Supposedly
under the reasoning that they were gentle bees. I think he made a grave
error. I have the video "The Monk and the Honeybee" ... When Buckfasts
revert, they are very bad.  I don't understand anything about genetics, but
we went from having gentle bees that could be worked with bare hands and no
veil... to bees that were as someone said: reverted to wolves-- no longer
your pet dog. We gave up beekeeping several years ago, but I still read this
email List and find the subjest of interest.
Regards,

-rob
Robert Watson

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