As for BA being well respected and lauded world wide yes he was. Probably rightly so but I have to wonder if he had put the same effort into AMM where we might be in the UK today.
Hello,
If he had concentrated his efforts upon AMM he would have been restricted by the possibilities available to him in the genetic make-up of the ssp. Every stable population of bees, strain or ssp has good and bad points, these are well-known to many and need not be repeated here. The theory (thought) behind the development of the Buckfast Bee was to take the desirable points from the various populations available, fix them and incorporate them into the main Buckfast strain and continue the breeding by using a closed population breeding system with the addition of other genetic material after suitable testing and selection. It worked!
AMM was used twice during the breeding of the main Buckfast strain, first in the original crosses and later crosses were made with French AMM. BA was very enthusiastic about the vigour for honey collection that the French material injected into his lines. Recent crosses have also been made with Galtee Group material (AMM) in an attempt to re-vamp the hybrid line vigour.
Pure breeding has a place in bee breeding and you shouldn't think for a second that us Buckfast breeders are against it - we rely upon it to provide us with material that has good characteristics to include in our strain. We detest people making comments about Buckfast bees that are misinformed /inaccurate which seem to be based upon preconceived misconceptions and even deliberate acts of misinformation at times by people who should actually know and act better. The mere mention of the word "Buckfast" can bring about foaming at the mouth and much verbal abuse which we as Buckfast beekeepers just cannot understand.
All pure breeding programs have two major hurdles:
1. Inbreeding eventually becomes a problem and the only way to rectify the situation is to cross the strain with something that is not related. If this is not done the strain will collapse in time.
2. If some character is weak or non-existent, then the only way to obtain it is to cross the strain with some other strain that already has the desirable in it.
Sue Cobey, the creator of the NWC strain, has seen this problem has had to get special permission to import semen from Europe and Turkey to try to find a solution.
Do you really think that BA endured all the problems and hardships, and many they were, traveling to obtain genetic material for kicks? Do you think that this man who had devoted himself to God and breeding a better bee was on some sort of ego trip? The answer is, of course, NO! - he was in charge of the Buckfast apiary, they had problems and he set about trying to solve those problems. That the rest of us managed to get access to that priceless genetic material is just on off-shoot.
BA rest in peace.
Best regards
Norton.