Hi Debbie and all....
 
---------
> From: Debbie <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Brown bees...
> Date: Tuesday, July 01, 1997 10:22 PM
 
>SNIP<
> My buckfast have always been very..... hot.  I got  attacked whenever I
go > near them.  Four days ago I killed their queen and trapped and killed
the
> drones because I don't want them to cross breed with my little wild brown
> ones.  I am in 7 days going to split the buckfast workers up into 20
nukes > and give them each a brown queen.
>SNIP<
 
> The last time I worked the buckfast they got in my suit and stung me 11 >
times. They were always hot heads.
 
Well...I don't know what kind of bees you have, but I will bet you a TON
that those are NOT Buckfasts.  By definition,one of the characteristics of
the Buckfast is that it is Gentle...which I can vouch for personally, as I
have two Buckfast colonies and I work them wearing no more than short pants
and a tee shirt.  They almost completely ignore me when I open the top of
the hive, whereas my "regular" bees all look up at me from between the top
bars.
 
> P.S.  These bees have a black thorax, with dark brown/tan body hair, then
> the first band on their abdoman is a bit wider than the rest of the
bands,
> it is brown/tan in colour, the next is a black narrower band, then a
narrow
> brown/tan, then a narrow black, then narrow brown/tan, and then the tip
of
> their abdoman looks like someone dipped them in black paint. They look
> to be smaller than buckfast, and they are all coloured the same, whereas
I > noticed that the buckfast verried in uneven markings to different
shades of > colours.  The drones of the brown bees are black with chocolate
brown
> hair.  The buckfast drones are lighter with a golden body hair.
 
Also, this makes no sense.  Any Buckfasts I have seen are very uniform in
colouring.  I will leave it to more expert beekeepers and Buckfast owners
to take it from there as far as the breeding goes.  I think your "Buckfast"
queen may have died or swarmed and what you have is a queen that has been
made by the bees and has been mated by some non-Buckfasts bees.
 
Anyone else care to comment?..
Regards,
Ian Watson      [log in to unmask]
St. Catharines, Canada   (near Niagara Falls)
real estate agent    gardener    homebrewer    baritone
beekeeper---> 6 colonies, 3 nucs on order