Seitentitel

1950
France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Sicily and Germany

The purpose of this journey was to search out the possible remaining ecotypes of the dark bee which had been native to Europe since the last Ice Age, "an undertaking which proved to be too late and hopeless". Even then Brother Adam was already advocating the creation of nature reserves to preserve the genetic variety of our honey-bees. People in France, Switzerland and Austria were of course mainly interested in the varieties of the dark, central European bee which still existed in nature, but also in the Carnica, 70 different ecotypes of which were tested in the Buckfast apiary over the years. South of the Alps, the Ligustica was researched, in Sicily the sicula, which is supposed to be a near relation of the Tunisian bees. This research journey was split into two parts (between whiles there was urgent work to be done with his own bees), and Brother Adam decided to end it with a visit to the German institutes, who were mainly concerned at that time with changing to the Carnica bee from Austria. Brother Adam described this change by the German bee-keepers as "the first step to an improved bee". While in Germany, he also took the opportunity of making the personal acquaintance in Lindau of Prof. Dr. Armbruster, who had been "dethroned" 20 years before.

1952
Algeria, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Greece,
Crete, Slovenia, and the Ligurian Alps

Brother Adam commenced these extensive research journeys, which led him first to the cradle of the old European bee -- in North Africa -- in February 1952. Afterwards he traveled to Israel, Jordan, Syria and the Lebanon, where the Syrian bee dominated. Nowadays, this race, which is very aggressive and difficult to keep in modern beehives, has mostly been replaced by other races of bees.

On May 17th he arrived in Cyprus. Brother Adam particularly valued the Cypriot bees for their unique ability to survive the winter, even in Northern countries. After two weeks of research work, he went on by ship to the South of Greece. Greek bees, distant relatives of the Carnica bees, played a decisive role in the subsequent development of the Buckfast strain.

In Crete Brother Adam was surprised to discover a native, self-contained race of bees, which had previously been unknown. "Everyone expected that the four specimen bees that Brother Adam brought back from a trip to Crete in 1952, would prove to belong to the South Grecian bees, but that was far from correct," [Prof. Ruttner, Natural History