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historical documents, and the unique preparatory work they represented for a complete encyclopaedia of bee races, his research journeys also found their application in the further development of the Buckfast bee:

In 1960 Brother Adam was able to achieve a new combination with the Greek bee and the basic Buckfast strain. Thus the Buckfast bee became slower to swarm and extremely non-aggressive.
Ever since his first journey to Turkey in 1954, Brother Adam had reported the special qualities of the Anatolian Variant, its strength and vitality as well as the particular thrift of the Anatolians. Expectations were exceeded with the material imported from the Sinop area in 1962. At the start of the 1970's, after ten years of intensive breeding work, a new cross-breed was achieved which made the Buckfast bee much thriftier and more resistant.
At almost the same time, and using the Anatolian cross-breed, Brother Adam was working on a further cross with the Egyptian bee. The reduced use of propolis by the Buckfast strain is the result of this combination.
Later cross-breeding with the Athos (Macedonian bee) at the end of the 1980's and a further Anatolian Cross-breed at the start of the 1990's was "not so much in order to acquire new characteristics as to achieve a further intensification of qualities already attained."

Brother Adam's Influence on Bee-Keepers

Brother Adam always considered his work as a service to all bee-keepers.

"Everyone is familiar with the guiding principle of St. Benedict -- ora et labora (pray and work). But those who know his writings better will soon see that a further obligation derives from this teaching, namely that of passing on to others the experience gained in ones life and work."

Older bee-keeping colleagues will remember, for example, Brother Adam's lectures at the Apimondia Congresses, e.g. 1955 in Vienna, where he gave "a fascinating talk about his bee-research journeys" (quotation from Dr. Dreher). After publication in various bee-keeping magazines, a collection of the accounts of his journeys, as well as a discussion of the various races of honeybees was published as a book in German, and thus made available to a large number of bee-keepers. (Brother Adam's Search, published by C. Koch).

In the meantime, middle-European bee-keepers have almost completely adopted the