Why is this so difficult?

Why do beekeepers say Buckfast is a hybrid, even though it has been bred with controlled sister matings for more than 100 years, and while for instance in Finland 95% of all Italian bees have been free mated for the last 70 years?

It just does not make sence.

In the last issue *) of the beekeeping magazine ”Mehiläinen” Lauri Ruottinen, former advisor of the Finnish Beekeepers Association and editor of ”Mehiläinen”, writes as follows:

”Buckfast has always been, and will be in the future, a hybrid with very uneven qualities.”

Really?

I wonder if Lauri Ruottinen has ever had good quality Buckfast queens? If so, he has not experienced the unbelievable uniformity of Buckfast bees.

Lets see what Jeff Harris has to say about this:

https://www.farmprogress.com/soybeans/cannibalizing-honey-bees-target-deadly-mite-kills-colonies

“The Europeans have a wonderful bee, the Buckfast honey bee, that has been developed over many generations; it’s extremely gentle, a good honey producer, survives their winters well, and is extremely uniform, and they have a big, coordinated program to avoid inbreeding.

I’ve seen these bees in Europe, and they’re incredibly uniform. We never get that kind of uniformity here — there’s just so much variation in our bees. The European bees are very predictable, and that’s what we need to be shooting for. The Europeans are very excited about this, and I’m looking into the potential for working with them.”

To all of you, who don´t know: Jeff Harris is one of the most acknowledged and famous bee researchers in the world and one of the creators of the VSH (Varroa Sensitive Hygiene) bees.

The picture is taken by Lauri Ruottinen, and we can all see what terrible hybrids my buckfast bees are…

Speaking about races: The Finnish Beekeepers Association published a recent study of race purity in Finland. Little less than 100 hives from different races were examined. Bee samples from various beekeepers around Finland were gathered.

The beekeeper was asked which race his bees were: Italian, Carnica or Mellifera?

The result of this study was astonishing: There were very few pure bred Italians found. In fact there were many samples, which the beekeeper said to be Italian bees, but they turned out to be pure Carnica bees according to genetic study made in lab.

Juhani Lundén

*) Source: Mehiläinen beekeeping magazine 1/2021, page 12, text by Lassi Kauko and Lauri Ruottinen