Our Breeding Philosophy
If it says Buckfast on the label, it must be Buckfast inside—this guiding principle underpins our work as beekeepers. A successful apiary stands or falls on the quality of its queen rearing. For us, a broad gene pool is the foundation of healthy and high-performing bee colonies.
Our goal in Buckfast breeding is a gentle, non-swarming, and healthy bee—one that is vigorous, forages diligently, and adapts perfectly to our regional climatic and nectar-flow conditions.
Following performance testing, we select the queens exhibiting the most desirable traits and transfer them to our breeding station. There, we keep the breeder queens—or "mother queens"—small by regularly removing brood, ensuring they remain in a constant state of colony expansion and consistently yield high-quality breeding stock. For the production of offspring, we perform targeted larval grafting, utilizing our own dedicated nurse colonies. Each young queen subsequently emerges into her own individual colony.
We take our virgin queens exclusively to recognized mainland and island mating stations—a commitment for which we are even willing to travel right across Germany. At first glance, this may seem like a laborious undertaking; however, it saves us an enormous amount of work down the line, ensures consistent yields, and makes working with the bees significantly more enjoyable and fulfilling.
Registered breeder with the GdeB (Association of European Buckfast Beekeepers)
