Howdy i am just asking if anyone one else sell the buckfast bee besides the weavers i am curious about this breed and would like to add them to my yard this spring. I know a guy that has sme but they look like italians but he said he got them from oth weavers i neversaw them before and waswondering if anyone here knows anything more about them.
tom
I don't know much about them other than some folks think highly of them. I think availablity is getting somewhat spotty. IIRC the weavers no longer offer them or it may just be one of the two weavers I do not know. I have read on various sites that the best buckfasts come out of Canada now but not sure if they can be imported. Maybe there are some smaller queen producers that have them available. I would guess a search would be in order. It has prompted my curiousity so I will do some looking and report back.
Okay, just a quickie google search show them available from both Drapers and Rweaver. Reading between the lines of the Bweaver site it looks like their line of buckfast has been rolled into a strain they call bweaver probably not a bad thing but maybe not the "pure" buckfast you may be looking for.
drapers has buckfast bees listed on their website
Buckfast queens are getting rare now days. Still used across the pond in Europe but not here in the states much. And there are some Canadian breeders.
On the other side of the pond in my neighbourhood we use Buckfast queens but they are not pure bread so we call them buckfast type.
They are based om buckfast but not pure , we call them working queens , as long as they are productive and healthy , we are all happy.
You can still order pure bread buckfast but if your main goal is to have healthy bees , the extra cost is not motivated. edward :-P
If the concern of getting Buckfast origin from other than Weaver, you may want to ask Draper's where they get their Buckfast packages from....
Dave Miska has some Buckfast queens he's trying out. Don't know if he has them for sale yet.