There are many reasons to keep Buckfast bees:

• Buckfast bees are extremely docile and healthy
• They are completely adjusted to their environment, brood diseases typical for a damp area as the British Isles are not present in Buckfast bees
• Their specific behaviour facilitates checking a hive as thouroughly as individually required at any time of the day and in any weather
• They are very quiet on the comb, bee-breeding made easy
• Quick build up in spring
• Buckfast bees never attack and rarely sting
• Reduced swarming tendency
• No complaints from neighbours when the apiary is situated in a densely populated area
• Suitable for a family with children (or frequent visitors)
• Ideal for a school garden (pet farms)
• Rewarding first contacts for the novice in beekeeping

Maybe this is not a new message for you, because you keep buckfast bees yourself, but never were in a position to talk about them with likeminded beekeepers. this situation also can have many reasons:

• There was no Buckfast Beekeeper’s Association in Ireland
• You had little or no contact to other beekeepers
• You are a member of a local or regional beekeeping association

The policy of the Federation of Irish Beekeeping Associations is to promote “The Dark European Honeybee”. In reality this policy has lead to intimidating and insulting of beekeepers with different opinions about their favourite bee. The exchange of queen bees with European colleagues and the importation of artificial swarms is pictured as a criminal act and not described as what it really is namely a completely normal transaction within the European Union. 

Beekeeping is not as simple as some will tell you. It needs a lot of brains and efforts therefore it is not necessary to make it even more complicated with non-cooperative bees.
The number of people interested in beekeeping increases every year, why not give them a chance to start with a modern bee in clean, well-kept hives and not with fear-inducing stinging insects in dirty old boxes, mistaking neglect for tradition.

Up until now FIBKA were the only place to get an insurance cover as a beekeeper in Ireland. Now the European Buckfast Beekeepers’ Associations e.V. is offering third party and product liability insurance cover from 01.01.2011 for the first time to their overseas members. So far they dealt with Associations on the continent only.
For more information click here.

As you may guess, the insurance company,  Versicherungskammer Bayern, a public law foundation, belonging to the financial group of German Savings Banks and based in Munich would like to have as many people interested in a cover as possible in order to make it worth their efforts.

There is no legal objection to joining several clubs or associations as a European citizen. As a beekeeper in Ireland you could have been a member of SICCAM, BIBBA, or GBBG so far and still have been also a member of a local beekeeping association affiliated to FIBKA. If you want to continue your membership in FIBKA it should be possible for a member of the First Independent Buckfast Beekeepers‘ Association.

So why do you still hesitate? contact us and apply for membership in:
The First Independent Buckfast Beekeepers‘ Association of Ireland!

 Click: what next?  Find out!