Subject: Brother Adam

From: Alan Craig <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 1996 14:59:01 +0100

I just read in this morning's newspaper
(large obituary in the Guardian) that
Brother Adam (of Buckfast Abbey) died
on Sunday.  He was 98 and had been
living in a nursing home for the past
two years

Alan

---

From: [email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 15:34:00 GMT

*FYI* OB on Brother Adam.
         ----------------------------------------
From: Les Simms <[email-masked]>
Date:         Sat, 7 Sep 1996 13:57:57 +0000
Subject:      Re: Brother Adam

> >> National Public Radio carried a nice piece on their Morning Edition
> >> program this morning about Brother Adam, including an interview with
> >>  Dr. Eva Crane.
> >
> > Is there a way to get a copy of this interview ?
>
>         You can write [email-masked]
>
> Also on the web check out
>
> http://brinkley.prognet.com/contentp/npr/me.html
>
> I think will have an online audio file of the program Sept 6th assuming
> the segmant was today, Sept. 5th. Today it lists the Sept 4th segments.
>

Here is the transcripted text.

National Public Radio,  Morning Edition , Thursday 5th September 1996.

>From  England there is news that one of the world's great naturalists
has died, a Benedictine monk known as Brother Adam.  NPR's Alex
Chadwick reports on the man who earned an international reputation for
his skill as a beekeeper.

Karl Kehrle was born 98 years ago, in a place that no longer exists
really, the kingdom of Wuerttenberg.  He was a sickly boy and at age
eleven he was sent by his mother to the Buckfast Abbey in Southwest
England, where he might regain his health.  He stayed on through World
War 1 and afterwards, the kingdom of Wuerttenberg dissolved into the
German Wymar Republic, Karl Kehrle too ceased to exist as such.  He
joined the Benedictine Order as Brother Adam and was placed in charge
of the abbey's apiary, its bee raising operation.

"You see, you know how if somebody who is very good with plants, you
say they've got green fingers (or green thumbs, I think you say)" Dr.
Eva Crane who with Brother Adam helped to found the International Bee
Research Association. "Well he was the same with bees, he could
recognise what was good."

In England, for bees, hardly anything was good at the time.  A
parasite had devastated the native population; there were practically
no honeybees left.  Brother Adam went to Turkey and found a good
substitute strain which he brought back to England.  The Buckfast
Abbey is located at the edge of Dartmoor, a great expanse of brushland
that's almost deserted.  It's not very hospitable, Dr. Crane notes,
but for a couple of weeks a year it is ideal bee country.

"The queens and drones mate in the air, so you can't just put them
together like cattle.  You've got to have your mating apiary several
miles from any other source of bees except the ones you want them to
mate with."

Gradually Brother Adam developed what became known as the "Buckfast
Superbee", a sleek, three-quarter inch, winged, buzz-bomb in a
handsome coat of dark-brown stripped with grey.  Sweetly
dispositioned, loyal and productive, they were a kind of "Labrador
Retriever" of the bee world.

"When you open a hive they'll stay on the comb and won't fly off and
buzz around you and sting you.  That is very important in beekeeping
and he wanted them to produce a lot of honey."

And they did produce a lot of honey and they were not much bothered by
the parasite that had wiped out the other bees.  The Buckfast Superbee
was an apiary triumph.  Brother Adam became the most famous bee-man in
England and maybe the world, according to Dr. Eva Crane who herself
went on the head the International Bee Research Association.

"I was in Mexico in 1957, staying with some German beekeepers there,
and someone said, "How many beekeepers do you have in England.  I only
know about Adam and Eve."  You see, because I was Eve and he was
Adam."

Brother Adam, Benedictine monk and beekeeper extraordinaire died
Sunday near the Buckfast Abbey in Southwest England.

This is Alex Chadwick reporting.
________________________________________________

     D R O M O R E  &  D I S T R I C T   B E E K E E P E R S
Estd. 1984 - World Cup Winners 1991-92 - Blue Ribbon Winners 1994
   Affiliated to the UBKA * Incorporating "Dromore Buzzette"
Chairman-Michael Young * Secretary-Bob Shaw * Treasurer-Les Simms
E-Mail: <[email-masked]> * Telephone: +44(0)1846-683512
S-Mail: 9 Governors Ridge Park, Hillsborough, Co.Down, BT26 6LD, UK