Anyone have recent contact with Russell Apiaries? Placed an on-line order for queens with them on Jan 20. Payment went through but I have never received an order confirmation from them and all attempt to contact them have failed.
Can anyone tell me how to get the rest of my wood ware I ordered in December?
Emails to the site do not work
Emails to Dr. Russell are not answered
Postings on his site just disappear...
Are the Mayan prophesies real?
Have the predictions taken their first victims for 2012?
Is this a case of SCD? (Supplier Collapse Disorder)
Folks they've had another big hit with the weather lost the main office and from what I've read stopped all queen shipments until the 16th of this month was expecting six queens last week for splits and knew I wasn't going to get them so I went ahead and split my hives.
I ordered 9 queens from Russel Apiaries the 8 weeks ago, delivery for the second week of april. I emailed them again beginning of this week, no response . Just tried calling and there voice mail is full and no longer recieveing messages. Thats kinda nice, do I wait for there queens to maybe show or get some coming from someplace else and hope theres dosn't. I would think I would of gotten an email about a shipping date by now..I've heard they have great queens, but I'm not impressed with the service..
The Queens are not late at this point, checking there web site there shipping dates are the same. I'm just wondering if they ever got my order in the first place. I'll wait a week and see if I hear anything.
I know when I ordered mine, that payment was required at the time the order was placed, so you should have received some sort of confirmation of paypal or credit card that they received your order. If not, you may be justly concerned that your order was not received.
"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..."
Get a clue BGhoney, do you want them answering every email and voicemail or cleaning up from the storm that put trees through their office and destroyed most of their computer equiptment, destroyed or weakened a lot of nucs, and played havoc with everything else. You are taking about a farming type endeavor and this is one heck of weather related excuse for your order to be late. I am also waiting on an order, but instead of thinking the worst (those guys are screwing me) I posted a message on his website forum asking if something had happened down there. Low and behold it had happened. So give them a break they are doing the best they can after having storms demolish them 2 years in a row. I can only hope if you are ever selling something to people they will have a little more patience with you.
Amen. I would bet it would improve their bottom line to not deal with all of us small time hobbyist. And from the complaining that I hear here I am sure it would improve their quality of life not to deal with us.
I am eagerly awaiting my Moonbeams that I ordered last summer, and are set to arrive mid May.
I was just on there webpage to get there phone number, not a word about a storm, so sorry. I have no problem with delayed orders, I've never got a response from the order to begin with. I can send out 2 emails a minute. I did state that the orders not even late yet, just wondering if it was coming. Thanks for the info, no matter how barbed.
Late last Summer (2011) I received a few of the Russell Apiaries SunKist Cordovan queens. When I had the queens in their cages, at my nuc yard, ready to install in their nucs, passing bees were attracted to the queens so strongly (in a non-hostile way), that I was unable to see into the cages as I was placing them - the cages were just covered with a cluster of bees. I've had caged queens attract passing bees, but this was way beyond anything I'd seen before.
As soon as I had young larvae from those MQs (mother queens), I began growing daughter queens. They've grown into quite a sizeable group of colonies, and growing.
I'm certainly not a queen breeder, but I'm pretty good at raising queens from young larvae. Maybe someday I'll grow into doing some actual honey bee breeding, but I realize it takes lots of know-how, experience, and resources to actually breed honey bees.
I sure hope Russell Apiaries starts having better Springtime weather. I appreciate their queens, and look forward to growing more of their honey bee varieties.
Someone above said,"I can send two emails a minute."They are absolutely right.Get some doofus who can't do anything else and have them email customers who have paid orders on the books.
A short email only has to say,"we had a storm and orders are delayed until the next century.You can have a refund if you do not care to wait."That is called customer service.What BGhoney had is customer NO service.
This is really about money and anyone who has my money had better keep me informed if there are problems.
So,all of you who jumped on the OP might want to reconsider.If it was your money and time window involved you might think differently.
"That is called customer service.What BGhoney had is customer NO service.
This is really about money and anyone who has my money had better keep me informed if there are problems.
So,all of you who jumped on the OP might want to reconsider.If it was your money and time window involved you might think differently.
They have $227.50 of my money for queens. Not a large amount, but too much to lose. I'm not worried because I understand that they are working with laptops and cell phones on a limited basis, and that there is a large area that is without any utilities. I don't know what progress is being made, but from dealing with them in the past I'm sure they will try to take care of everyone as soon as they can. I to am in need of my queens to give to a nuc builder to build my nucs with. I have emailed them twice lately with no answer, and I usually get one. So is there anyone that would like to trade places with them? I don't think so. Patience please!
Sounds like sending out an email to all one's contacts saying we had a disaster is just too difficult to handle for them. Letting your customers sit around wondering what's gong on, now that's sound business practice. Bet their money made it into the bank no problems though LOL
Yeah right. I wish it were that simple. There are something like 21,000 customers and there is no email contacts list. We asked Doc about that option already and he reminded us of the craziness of last year when we did something like that on just a small scale. People who had queen orders for June were freaking out and wanting daily status updates from that point on just because we sent a mass email alerting people of a delay due to a storm in March.
The info was posted on our website as well as here. No one was left in the dark except for us and the 7,000 people in the area with no power. It sure is sad how people have become. You wanna know what Doc said while we were all standing in the drive in the pouring rain staring in awe at the destruction? He looked at Hughes and told him to get the guys in and go door to door checking on people and putting tarps on their roofs, while Sam, Cody, and Matt were clearing driveways. He bought every single boat battery and inverter that walmart had and had Steve and Blaine handing them out to houses with children and elderly so they could run lamps for light at least. AND his wife Nicole and Victoria boxed up all of the dry and canned foods in his home so that Hughes and Phil could hand it all out to families and they cooked everything that was in his fridges and freezers and took plates to the kids and old folks every day for lunch and dinner. My husband got into the spirit and drove his tractor around for a whole week clearing trees for folks.
I love working for people with that care and stand up for others. You may think that getting an email would have saved you the time of looking at the updates on the website, and that may be very important to you. But I am with Valleyman, its easy to talk about how others shoulda, woulda, coulda, when its not your britches that are on fire.
We are working from laptops and cell phones until everything is wired back up and functioning. All of our guys came in from other states and a few other companies even sent their crews to get the office gutted and repaired. They all just left out today. We have a roof, well, all except for one exterior area. We have new floors, walls, and ceilings. Now we are just putting the desks and computers together and getting the tech guys to wire everything back up and get the systems set up on the new computers.
Doc is working on the nucs. The queens are fine and we should be shipping way more than we usually do per shipdate starting on 4-16.
The info was posted on our website as well as here. No one was left in the dark except for us and the 7,000 people in the area with no power. It sure is sad how people have become. You wanna know what Doc said while we were all standing in the drive in the pouring rain staring in awe at the destruction? He looked at Hughes and told him to get the guys in and go door to door checking on people and putting tarps on their roofs, while Sam, Cody, and Matt were clearing driveways. He bought every single boat battery and inverter that walmart had and had Steve and Blaine handing them out to houses with children and elderly so they could run lamps for light at least. AND his wife Nicole and Victoria boxed up all of the dry and canned foods in his home so that Hughes and Phil could hand it all out to families and they cooked everything that was in his fridges and freezers and took plates to the kids and old folks every day for lunch and dinner. My husband got into the spirit and drove his tractor around for a whole week clearing trees for folks.
I recieved an email from them overnite giving me my ship date and tenative arrival date. I hope that everyone does, but you need to read TwinkieBees post to understand the magnitude of what they are enduring. This is 2 years in a row for major storm damage. You don't ever get used to this type of situation.
Let me further say that I do not know any of the people involved personally, but I have had considerable contact with all of them via email. I have NEVER been misled or lied to in any way by any of them. I have not always gotten things exactly when I wanted them, but I'm not their only customer, and don't expect any special treatment. Just be patient and they will deliver a high quality product.
Sorry to hear your community was hit so hard. I've been there and done that. It also sounds like you actually did a very good job of reaching customers. I say that because I don't see a lot of complaining going on. one customer is not a lot and you can't reach them all. It seems most who replied here are aware of the situation.
This thread does serve as a great example of the damage one dissatisfied customer can cause though.
my thoughts and well wishes to your community. Good luck on your goal of the 16th.
If you are not already doing it I would make it clear on your web site that customers need to check the site for updates. I woudl do it that way so that I have made it clear that is my method of communicating with my customers. I don't think I would even offer e-mail contact on a personal order level. I've offered things on a volunteer non profit basis and know how even small order, processing and shipping blah blah blah gets.
Well Im glad the responses turned positive, I've heard they have wonderfull bees, and cant wait to try them, I didn't check my spame 8 weeks ago, maybe they responded. there site says paypal would send an auto response, I have no problem waiting a few weeks for the bees. I'll check my spam when I get home and see if anything was sent earlier this week. Good luck to them.
When I ordered, I received a receipt from PayPal. That is good enough for me. Now I wait (and have been) until my queens arrive. I could use them now, but will still need them when they arrive sometime later this year.
Speaking of Russel Apiaries, has anyone ever successfully arranged a piggy-back nuc delivery? I just found out about the delivery system a month ago and posted on their forum but haven't had any responses. I am thinking that the chance of someone out there willing to bring a nuc closer to me may be slim to none, even if gas money is offered. Any words of advice?
Seriously?! Are you insinuating something by that or just stirring the pot?
I'm up by 3 or 4 every morning except for when I work the late shift twice a week. I have boys to drag out of bed and get to school. A family to take care of. A house to keep up. A business to run. And then I have my part time job, that aint so part time right now. I read forums when I have a chance. Is there a certain time that you feel would be more proper for me to be here? I'm not "posting about my boss" I'm giving updates to people who have questions that I can answer. Russell says that someone here plays the devil's advocate so he will not post here. Could be why this is all in the bee breeding area instead of the consumer reports. He uses his phone to post on forums and does most of it while traveling to yards before daylight.
amethysta, if it looks like you are not going to be able to find a piggy-back, I can get you a refund or send a queen to someone closer to you and get them to over stock a nuc for you. There should be a few headed to NY, NH, and ME. But they may not be speaking up because of a lack of space or you may be too far off of their route.
Seriously! I just notice that both you and Robert have on many occasions posted messages in the middle of the night. That doesn't seem odd to you? Especially since you've now decided to be the go between person for Robert and the forums. I raised 5 kids myself, so I know what it's all about.
Ya know Twinkie, when stuff like weather happens, there are some here that would volunteer to be there to help with the repairs, all for the chanch of learning or watching methods of breeding Queens. Most of what I see here is a fierce loyalty among those of us that use Russell Queens, and I for one would be honored to get an oppertunity to be of service.
Twinkiebee, I seem to be confused. You are saying that storms in MS have destroyed mating nucs and prevented Robert from shipping queens on time.
However in a thread in the consumer report colum you said Robert had no production yards in MS.
"He doesn't produce queens in Mississippi. His home is here so there is an office here and a research yard here. Mississippi is where his dad's operation was. Robert has always had bees all over. Robert's brother killed almost all of his dad's hives by stealing nucs out of them during beetle season. His dad asked Robert to step in and save what was left when he found out what the brother was doing. Then Robert's dad passed away and Robert still keeps up the last few hives that his dad had for sentimental purposes and uses them to study different issues so that other people can use the research to keep their bees alive."
The nucs were not mating nucs. They were five frame nucs. The yard didn't prevent anything from shipping, the lack of an office did. We process orders and generate labels for packages from that location, no matter where the queens are shipping from. Aside from that, all of our crews were brought in to clear debris and rebuild. Kinda hard to cage queens in one state when your working in another. Confussion gone?
Preciousbeesfarms, Thank you. We actually did have a few guys come in from other operations and they were a lot of help.
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