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