Nucs & Buckfast queens from our own breeding
I breed Buckfast queens and offer nucs on Dadant US by pre-order. Availability is seasonally limited and depends on colony development and mating success.
Nucs
The number of frames depends on the season, stage of development and the individual agreement; there is no rigid year-round minimum size. The queen is mated and laying. For small or late nucs, I point out the correspondingly greater development and feeding requirements. Nucs are collection only. The buyer brings a suitable transport box; the colony is transferred at collection. A health certificate and breeding record are provided.
Queens & cells
In breeding, I pay particular attention to gentleness, low swarming tendency, calm behaviour on the comb and hygienic behaviour.
As breeding mothers I use mating-station-mated queens with documented ancestry. F1 queens are bred exclusively for sale and are open-mated at the apiary. I do not cut drone brood at any time of year, so that a broad cross-section of the available drone genetics can take part in the open mating of the F1 queens produced for sale.
Queens are supplied in an introduction cage with attendant bees and a breeding record; the current disease-clearance certificate is also included.
View breeder pedigree profileBuckfast breeding
I work with Buckfast bees, which are known for their gentleness, calm behaviour on the comb and low swarming tendency. My queens come from my own breeding and are selected deliberately. The focus is on low swarming tendency, gentleness and pronounced hygienic behaviour. The maternal and paternal lines currently achieve around 80 percent removal behaviour – an important building block on the way to more resilient and Varroa-tolerant colonies. Yield is deliberately not a selection criterion. At my location, around 50 kg of honey per colony per year is nevertheless realistic, with the spring flow generally stronger than the summer flow.
For building my own breeding stock and apiary population, I rely on mating-station-mated queens. F1 queens are produced exclusively as offspring for sale and are open-mated at the apiary. In the medium term, I want to keep only mating-station-mated queens in my own colonies. The F1 queens for sale descend from the documented breeding mothers and are not intended as a substitute for this development of my own stock.
Important: pre-order required
Nucs, queens and queen cells ready to emerge are available by pre-order only. Pre-orders are possible until the end of June. Later enquiries and the exact collection or supply date are arranged individually and depend on colony development, mating success and weather.
Because the apiary is deliberately small, available quantities are limited. Orders require advance payment. If a pre-ordered queen or nuc cannot be supplied because of breeding or mating outcomes, the purchase price paid for it will be refunded.
Orders & coordination
Binding orders and pre-orders are accepted exclusively by email at info@herrhonig.org. Phone and WhatsApp may be used for general questions and further coordination, but they are not order channels.