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R. Russell queens

73K views 153 replies 57 participants last post by  Vance G 
#1 ·
Greetings all!

Was wondering if anyone who has ordered queens from R. Russell has received them yet? If so, could you tell me a) when you ordered them? and b) when they arrived?
Thanks,
Steven
 
#2 ·
Robert posted this on his site.

At this point it looks like we are going to have to postpone shipping queens until April 16th... at that time we will be shipping more than we usually do per day so we can catch back up as quickly as possible... the office is a total mess... a large nuc yard was hit as well, and while we were able to straighten up the majority of the nucs, they will definitely be set back from the damages... this whole week is calling for thunderstorms, so we won't be able to make a clear assessment of how bad and what it will take to get them back on track until next week... I am thankful for all the help that everyone is offering us, and a few guys from other operations have already arrived as well as our staff from other states, so we have a strong work force working on what they can each time the weather gives us a chance... we are still trying to answer emails but the ladies are working from laptops and cell phones at the moment, and the internet connection is very slow compared to the hard wired office, so hang in there while they work through that... thank you everyone for understanding...
 
#9 ·
The charge is there. They have my money -- paid in full. I'm leaving town on June 13 for three months of work away from home. If I don't get my queens by then, they will die in the Post Office. I planned my order based on my work schedule -- not on a supplier that can't even answer the phone.

I confess that I have myself to blame. Had I googled Russell Apiaries, I would have learned that their failure to deliver in a reasonable amount of time and their failure communicate has been a chronic problem for years.
 
#12 ·
It is not uncommon for an agricultural based operation to be behind by a week or two. Considering everything that has happened to Russell's this year (tornadoes, destroyed buildings, worker deaths) I'd be shocked if he wasn't AT LEAST three weeks behind in his orders.

If you requested a shipping date for May 28, but you are leaving for three months on June 13th, I would say you planned poorly.
 
#15 ·
Blainenay booked and paid almost 10 weeks before a scheduled ship date which was over 2 weeks before his scheduled departure dosent strike me as unreasonable. That is almost 3 months that Russells had to work with. We should all plan so poorly.....
 
#16 ·
That is almost 3 months that Russells had to work with.
And he should take precedence over individuals that booked 6 months in advance? A year in advance? I don't think so. When the breeder gets behind, it's a first come first serve thing. Three months is nothing for this type of operation.

Plus, my comment had more to do with the amount of time it takes to install a queen, rather than the requested shipping date. If you plant a queen in a hive, you should wait at least a week before checking to see if she was accepted. If you gave yourself two weeks to plant a queen and make sure she is accepted before walking away for three months, that doesn't give enough time. One week to see if the queen is accepted, and if she isn't then what do you do? You have one week to get a replacement and repeat the process? Impossible. We all know any breeder will not have a 100% take rate. That's all assuming they arrive ON THE EXACT DATE YOU WANTED. I have yet to find a breeder (other than the "johnny on the spot" guys) that isn't usually running behind by about a week by this time of year every year.

Poor planning all around.
 
#18 ·
Heck - if that is the way all queen producers operate then why don't they just state "send us your money and we'll send you a queen when we darn well want to and don't harass us with phone calls or emails because we won't respond. Thanks for your hard earned money....".

It amazes me how this thread always ends up blaming people who sent their money based on a promise that wasn't kept. If it is so unpredictable, don't cash peoples checks until you can deliver the goods.
 
#22 ·
Specialkayme, I guess I am the Johnny on the spot breeder. I book less than I know I can produce each week. That way I ship when people need queens, not when I can get around to it. If my customer orders queens for a particular date, he usually has splits made up waiting on those queens. If you consistantly overbook queens you can never catch up, sounds like poor planning on the queen producers part to me.

Johnny
 
#29 ·
If you consistantly overbook queens you can never catch up, sounds like poor planning on the queen producers part to me.
You may be a "Johnny on the spot" breeder . . . literally . . . lol. But how many queens do you sell a week, or a season? The fewer you have, the easier it is to calculate how many queens you need to breed and the easier it is to stay ahead of those orders. Are you turning any queen orders away?

For example, if you sell 20 queens a week on average, if you count all your variables together, you should probably have enough mating nucs for 40 queens a week. Some weeks you may end up with 20 good queens, others you may end up with 35 queens, and on a rare occasion you may end up with 15. Overall the average wins out. But the larger the operation gets the greater the swing in either direction the numbers get. If you sell 2,000 queens a week, and you have mating nucs for 4,000 queens a week, some weeks you may end up with 3,500 queens. Others you may end up with 1,000 queens. When you are selling 2,000 a week, and you missed a week by one thousand, it's tough to recover. I don't consider that poor planning on the breeder's part. I consider that statistics.
 
#26 ·
I ordered a Sunkist Cordovan January 2012. I gave three possible ship dates. Two in March and one in April. I received my queen first week in May. I have no complaints about the delivery time. However, here it is June 9 and the hive she was placed in is already dead. She laid less than one frame of eggs and then stopped laying. Not sure what happened. Could have been something I did or could have been just a bad queen.
 
#27 ·
Mr. Nay cancelled his order on 6/5. The funds were reversed then. His queens were caged and in the Georgia hub being bundled when they crew went to print his label and realized that the funds had been reversed. His queens were sent to someone else as a result. 5 days later than he requested. You can't please everyone. If 5% is late, that's unfortunate but not so terrible given the limited staff and high volume of orders. What's terrible is that 5% race here to make a big deal out of every delay. Then there are those that play devils advocate to cause panic and distrust. People read this and flood us with emails and calls. That's why we are so behind on responses. 50 queens a week is a lemonade stand next to a cola company. I alone deal with that many customers in a day and I am part-time. Of course the service will because I better with so few to cater to. I'm not suppose to be "fueling these fires" I just thought people should try to remember that there are two sides to every story and the devils advocates here make it seem a lot worse than it is. There are more rave reviews on the consumer reports than concerned customers yet there are more posts by the devils advocates than any actual customers. I don't have the time or energy to discuss it. Just want you all to think about these things when you are on here.
 
#28 ·
I ordered a Moonbeam a couple of months ago for late June delivery be interesting to see if it shows up. I have already been charged for it. I leave July 1 for 10 days of camping with my sons. If it shows up then it will surely die.
 
#35 ·
Is SpecialKayMe Dr. Russell or something? I have never seen so much time spent by a disinterested third party attacking consumers who have experienced less than stellar service from a vendor.

Okay - granted Dr. Russell must make some kind of magic bees, and that is great. But why the aggressive attacks at people who have spent their hard earned money purchasing queens that they never received, or have received late.

I can understand how many of the people are upset - maybe they are just hobbyists, but it still doesn't make it okay not to provide them with good customer service and contact. For many people - $100 - $200 is a lot of money, and to have sent it to someone and them not deliver the goods, and then to be unable to contact them either by phone or email, is very upsetting.

And I don't think it is wrong for people who have received poor service to come on a forum and state as much. No one complains when someone spreads good information by word of mouth. People posting their bad experiences help inform others into making good decisions with their money.
 
#36 ·
No, I'm not Dr. Russell. I've been on this site before he showed up (selling to individuals) and he has long since moved away from this site. He considers it a waste of his time.

No doubt individuals should inform others of poor service. I'm actually an advocate of that. The invisible hand always wins.

But if you really got bad service, post it. Don't make it up. Don't exaggerate the truth. Don't tell me your order was two weeks late when it was 3 days late. Don't tell me you can't get a refund when you disputed an order through paypal and the vender already refunded your money.

People posting their bad experiences help inform others into making good decisions with their money.
And people lying about what happened, or exaggerating the truth, benefits no one, informs no one of anything, and prevents individuals from making truly informed decisions in the future.

Call things like they are. That's all I ask. If that's "aggressively attacking" someone, I apologize. I don't think so myself, as I think it's more about making someone accountable for what they say, but I understand where you are coming from and I'll try to be better in the future. More reasonable?
 
#38 ·
I have no axe to grind here. In fact, I have been excited about acquiring some Russel queens in the future. I completely understand the agricultural, weather, hard luck issue. However, i do not understand the lack of communication issues. To me, that is a zero tolerance issue, when doing business on the internet. In today's technology, an immediate response and tracking info is something that even the most basic laymen (like myself) can achieve. There are tools out there through paypal, UPS, and Fedex, that make these things automatic. There is no excuse for a client to go days, weeks, or months without any communication or acknowledgement of their order. I'm sorry, but i don't care if you offered the cure for all diseases and pest and there was a waiting list. THIS ALONE would be enough to discourage me from placing an order. NO EXCUSES. JMHO and in no way am I questioning the quality od the product.
 
#39 ·
I thnk Russell Apiaries has gotten the message by now. Selling to the general public is a different game than to commercial apiaries. They responded to my email within 6 hours. If they desire an online retail presence they will get their act together. There are plenty of software tools for them to utilize to increase the customer experience. If they don't they will revert to providing queens to commercial operations as they have done and eliminate the sideliners and hobbyists like us. It is a financial decision they will make and we will all know soon enough. So far they have been forthright and honest with me. I look forward to introducing their Moonbeam genetics to my area.
 
#40 ·
No need to get into the details (drama) of my order to Russell Apiaries because there is always room for debate but PayPal contacted him and he agreed to a refund.

Got a notice from PayPal this evening telling me the refund was issued and then another about an hour later telling me it failed because it did not clear their account.

Just a heads up, looks like they have bigger problems brewing.
 
#41 ·
From someone outside looking in.

1) i care to hear about customers who received poor customer support from a vendor they ordered products with.
2) I have no idea who's side is more true, but i have little reason to doubt a person who posts they have tried to get in contact with a vendor multipul times with no success. Only to finally get a response after a disputing the charge with a credit card company. Which is all to familiar story.
3) a vendor could have the best excuses in the world, or the worst. Doesn't matter, point is, IF they dont make an effort to communicate to EVERY customer, that there order has become delayed, especially with a time sensitive product, thats poor customer service period.
Oh and by my math....May 28 to june 10th is 1 day short of 2 weeks or "nearly 2 weeks". I dont what else you would call "nearly 2 weeks"?
 
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