Book Review: Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey

Brother Adam in his home apiary at Buckfast Abbey in 1983. Photo: Erik Osterlund, Beesource.com

Optimism, patience, perseverance and hope are some of the qualities a beekeeper must have. - Brother Adam

What can we learn from a beekeeping book that was written over 40 years ago? It turns out quite a lot if that book was written by legendary beekeeper and queen breeder Brother Adam from Buckfast Abbey in Devon.  

​For Christmas I was given a copy of Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey. In reading it I was delighted to be transported to Buckfast Abbey in the early 1930s and 40s as Brother Adam recounted his experiences of hive management and lessons learned. Today, beekeepers have a wealth of information about bees and beekeeping at our fingertips. But for Brother Adam, trying to rebuild the Buckfast apiary after the extinction of the native English honeybee by disease, it was a steep learning curve.  
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At the time, the abbey beekeepers were learning to work with varieties of newly imported European honeybees and desperate to try to find a strain that could not just survive but flourish in the cold and damp English weather. ​

In this slim volume Brother Adam shares the innovations they made and perfected for their beekeeping equipment, hive management practices and bee breeding.  Some of the things he notes as critical to success at Buckfast Abbey:

• The larger the brood nest the more easily and quickly a queen can build up the colony
• The more room the queen has to lay the less likely the colony is to swarm
• The success of the hive depends on the health and productivity of the queen

“...there is no strain of bees that will meet the wishes of everyone. Moreover, there is no perfect or ideal bee. The choice in every case will mean a balancing one set of advantages against another set of disadvantages, and an eventual adjustment to the idiosyncrasies of the bee favoured.- Brother Adam on which type of bees are best.

Insights into Buckfast Abbey hive management practices:

• Buckfast replaces frames of comb every four years to minimize disease and other detrimental things stored in their wax
• Buckfast beekeepers requeen each colony with an overwintered queen every Spring (this is a lot easier for them to do than a hobbyist because they breed and raise their own queens (600-1200/year)
• Brother Adam and the Buckfast beekeepers manage 600 hives and many of his tips speak to working smarter and more efficiently. Some of tips can be eye-opening for a hobby beekeeper  - for example his technique for mixing up 1200 gallons of syrup by the hundredweight bag of sugar.

“But we never had or will have a mastery of the honeybee. She is wild by nature and will at all times have her own way and will unfailingly follow her instincts. It is up to us to understand her ways and adjust ourselves to her truly marvellous nature, not attempting the impossible of ‘mastering’ her, but rather doing all we can to serve her needs. -- Brother Adam on being called a bee master

Not everything Brother Adam shares is applicable to beekeeping in our time and place. In the forty years since this book was written researchers have learned a lot about bees, their biology, and of course today there different threats to bee health. In addition, the beekeeping environment Brother Adam is writing about is local to Devon, England not our weather or seasons.  ​

Brother Adam writes with a distinct voice thanks to a rich vocabulary and strong opinion on how to manage bees.  The book is engaging and accessible to a intermediate-level beekeeper who has familiarity with more specific beekeeping terms and techniques. The photos of Buckfast apiaries and equipment are fascinating to explore.

Who would enjoy this book? Anyone who is looking to learn from a legend in beekeeping and who wants to know more about beekeeping techniques, evolution of beekeeping equipment and history of beekeeping. Last but not least, Brother Adam shares his recipes for mead in the last chapter. I fully intend to try the Buckfast recipe after my next honey harvest.