Seitentitel

in the world, who incited the German bee-keepers to change their ideas and not be held back by out of date traditions.

in 1987 he was made an honorary doctor of agriculture by the Swedish university of Uppsala.

in 1988 he received the "Verdienstmedaille" of the German province of Baden-Württemburg.

in 1989 he was made an honorary doctor of agriculture by the English university of Exeter.

the honorary citizenship of his birthplace, Mittelbiberach (where he regularly spent his holidays with his niece, Maria Kehrle) sounds very modest in comparison, as do the countless honors from international bee-associations.

The Last Years

After his eye operation, Brother Adam recovered sufficiently to continue working for another 3 years.

"In the course of 1991, it became increasingly clear that my daily work-load was beyond my strength. The suggestion that I should merely supervise the breeding and selection work proved not to be practicable. Besides it would have put me in a position which I considered completely undesirable: namely to give the deceptive impression that the breeding work in the monastery's apiary continued to be handled exactly as in the past. But this I could not guarantee since the true estimation of breeding potential requires a continuous observation of the bees throughout the year. Merely accepting a formal responsibility made no sense to me."

Brother Adam finally had to give up his bee keeping after over 70 years of professional work.

In his well-earned retirement, he was still pleased to receive visitors and keep up his voluminous correspondence. After further health problems due to his age, he found the care he needed in a nearby nursing home.

In the meantime the Buckfast apiary presents itself to visitors in its continuing beauty and perfection. This continuing existence of the Buckfast apiary is entirely due to the perseverance of Brother Adam's most faithful assistance, Peter Donovan, who has now also trained Brother Daniel in bee-keeping

The news of Brother Adam's death soon spread in the late evening of 1st September 1996. A long and well-filled life had come to an