Russell Queens

I have been wanting to try some Russell Sunkist Queens for a couple years now. I first placed my order in January of 2011 made payment and they confirmed my order within a day. They were due to ship that May, but I had to cancel them because of a trip to Italy. When I returned I emailed them and asked them not to ship because we were experiencing such a bad spring, wind, cold, drought. It was not time to be making up splits as many of my colonies were stressed. They agreed to place my order on hold for a 'will call". This February I emailed them and asked to have my previous order shipped this April, 2012. Victoria emailed me back the following day and confirmed they would ship the week of April 23rd. After a one week delay I received them via US Postal overnight mail this past Saturday, May 5th. I had made up some splits and installed most of them yesterday. Just wanted to say thank you to Victoria and Russell. I always heard back from them immediately and they really went out of their way to accomodate my schedule. Looking forward to checking out these Sunkists and for some other orders in the future.

Sounds like great service. Keep us posted on how they work out for you.

these people did all they were suppose to for me, bee's in good health and delivered on the day they said, will be doing business again with Russell Apiaries......

this is good as last year everyone bashed russell. either they had bad customers last year or their service is getting better.

their service is much better. i think victoria bell is her name and she got back with me regarding an order before i could get another beer. i got my queen when she said i would and she looks awesome! (the queen ,but i am sure victoria is awesome also.) send a message thru the website for best results. I will order from russel again.

I've emailed twice and tried to call to get an update on two orders, one that I placed last year and the other placed this year. So far, no response. They had a tornado that set them back and put an update on their website that they were behind but that was nearly a month ago and no updates since. Not a knock on them personally but the communication could definitely improve. Hopefully the wait will be worth it.

I also have emailed twice to get an update on my queen order I placed last year. Their web site says emailing is the best way to contact them. Still no response. I tried calling but their voice mail box was full.

I've also tried calling both last week and this week and the phone goes to a full voice mail. Still no response. Emailed for a third time. I've very disappointed with the lack of communication.

Every time i see this name come up i bite my lip . I'm glad so many have great service but for those that don't i hear your cry for help . I sent Bob a pm a month ago and still no response , i pm'd his bully Twinky ,,,e mail to the web site . Some things never change . I said i wouldn't act like a teenage girl on facebook but im sure tempted . Shall i talk about my dealings with this company ? I'd prefer not to . The biggest joke ,,,and it is a joke ,,,the bees are worth the wait . Here"s the bee math . You can add up the numbers as you see fit . A queen lays x amount of bees a day , there are 30 days in a month . Is it worth it to wait a month for 400$ worth of queens payed for 11 months in advance ? Don't even give me the livestock thing , I grew up shoveling . If I pay in advance for a bull and it dies before i pick it up i get my money back . Wheres my refund ? What happened to I stand behind my bees ? Bob ? Here's how it is now ,,if i don't get a refund . For sale 10 moonbeams ..My invoice says 428$ shipped . I'll take 375 ..or less ,, I wont have them in my yard . I'm done playing this game ..I called Kelley"s this am ..bees shipped today . I called BrokeT ..he's shipping on Monday .Nationally speaking , for this climate , I would say ,,invest elsewhere . This post is wife approved . Disclaimer ,, I have a paper trail , email and pm's..a video trail . All queens in my vids are named and where they come from . Don"t even light me up on those lame sunkist nucs , hear that flush ? That was 2500$ .The thing about this vid there was a 4th box ..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGpKAEFhO8k

Last word from me. Got my queens after many phone calls, many e-mails days missed from work, add that to the cost of the queens. This was for 5 sunkist queens. I ordered northern queens as instructed. 4 out of 5 did not make it through the winter we had the easyiest winter in years many years. The hive that made it, is not active. Middle of the day flying the only hive with no honey stored, so far. Might be good warm weather bees, not northern bees. It seems this company has weather problems every year. Save yourself from getting upset order from a company that has less weather problems. If you can get you bees local get them. My e-mail mudlake@hughes.net. Thank You for your time Tony

i had a similar experience to big joe. Sent an email a day ago to delay an order and victoria had emailed me back a few hours later. no problems here with service

After several emails and unanswered phone calls, I posted this thread on the Russell Apiaries forum. If I sound grumpy, that's it because I am.
Short and to the point. I know many think Dr. Russell is amazing, but if you are going to offer products to the public, certainly you need to be prepared to deliver. If you can't deliver for what ever reason..
JUST LET US KNOW...

Here is what I said:
Same as many, I placed my order for 7 queens early March for late April delivery. No responses to emails, no one answers phone.Now the Middle of May and I am starting to feel I just threw $200. into the fire. I am in a short season Northern state and don't want these queens just in time to try to overwinter them. Some information and communication would go a long way to a new customer .

A problem for me was after I ordered these queens, I saw on another page people generally order their queens the year before they are needed. That information should be on the page queens are ordered. Not somewhere else on your web site.

Too late after you've already hit the 'pay pal' symbol.

Also wanted to say I do know about your storm damage. All I am asking is if you will be able to ship these queens within a reasonable time frame or not so I can make plans. I would rather wait until next year than get these queens too late in the summer to make good use of them.

As of today My order was placed 70 days ago.

When my son was killed, I still had to run my construction business. We all have problems at times. We had to hire extra people to help complete our jobs until our family had recovered enough to work again. Your storm damage was unfortunate, but I believe folks would appreciate some communication from your end.

I wouldn't be so worried if I had not read numerous posts on beesourse and your own web site about unhappy customers. I am going to speak up before months go by like it has for so many others.

I placed an order in August of last year, for mid may queens. I received an email from them stating that they would be shipping within a week. I think that you need to slow down and relax, he sells thousands of queens a year, on top of numerous products and cells. Things happen that are out of everyones control, and 70 days to wait is not that bad, considering the fact that you arent his only customer and many people ordered their queens last year, for spring delivery. Hang in their, im sure they will get to you soon.

i sent an email yesterday and got a response from victoria within a few hours. try again :)

I feel your pain Mike, the last thing I heard from Dr. Russell was "rest assured I will make it right" that was 8/15/2011. I've sent emails and called and left messages, no response!
At least it was only $500 that I flushed.

Do you have an email address that is different than the one on their web site?

I guess I am frustrated. Recently I tried to order a 1400 Maxant 20 frame radial extractor from Chris here on beesourse. I called him 6 times and he never returned a single call. After a month trying to get him to respond, I bought one from Ruhl bees in Oregon..was shipped in just a few days.
So I have already had my fill of waiting and hoping to get some response.

There are a lot of people who ordered and paid months before I did and are not getting their order or replys from this business, I would be a fool to think I am higher up on the delivery list they they are.
I know everyone is busy this time of year..but please don't offer products if you can't deliver and have no customer service to at least contact the customer.

And if you for some reason can't deliver-don't hold my money hostage and just not return my calls or emails. We all understand bees are an agricultural item that is dependent on lots of factors including the weather.

Correspondence isn't dependent on anything else but good business practices and just a few moments of someones time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by the doc

i had a similar experience to big joe. Sent an email a day ago to delay an order and victoria had emailed me back a few hours later. no problems here with service

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What email address did you use? I am sending to the email address russellapiaries@yahoo.com which is listed on their site and not getting any response. I've checked the junk folder too. Also sent a PM to Dr Russell on his forums. Still no answer. This makes no sense that some people would get immediate responses and others hear nothing at all.

I just received a response to my 3rd email so that is encouraging.

All I can say is, you can have the best product in the world but if you aren't reliably communicating with your customers and leaving them hanging with no idea what is going on that's a problem. That is no way to run a business.

This will be my last order from Russell Apiaries until they sort out these issues. It's just not worth the hassle.

Working on some late night homework here. Sent an email while I was taking a quick break, and got a reply before I could get the paper done.

It seems that many of the posters here get responses right away.
If that is true then they must be selectively ignoring the folks who have issues.
That's just plain bad business.