R. Russell queens

[schmism]

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"?

[blainenay]

Mr. Nay cancelled his order on 6/5. The funds were reversed then....

No refund as of 20 June.

[theriverhawk]

Twinkie...

So, do you call this poor service? In what way can you defend this?

1. Emailed regarding shipping dates, etc. before ordering. I did get a response and was told what to do in order to get them the week of my order(May 7).
2. Ordered and did what I was told.
3. The week of May 7 comes and goes. No emails letting me know the order is delayed. On the 11th, I did email just asking if I should expect them the next week. Got no response.
4. May 21, I email because I know I am going to be traveling June 3-10 and am concerned that the queens would ship that week.
5. May 23, I email the same concern again because of no response to first email. Got a response that the order would marked to NOT ship that week. Was asked if next week would actually work for me. I, of course, said HECK YES as long as they would arrive on or before Friday June 1st.
6. On the 29th, I get an email from the USPS stating the queens had been shipped the 29th.
7. Friday the 1st comes and goes with no queens. I talk to USPS and they state that the queens have a shipping # but that they were never actually picked up. WHAT???? In Russell's defense, this was a USPS issue...
8. Queens arrive Saturday, June 2nd. I am leaving 7:00AM on the 3rd for 9 days. Do I have time to run down to a yard to put queens in? Don't have much of a choice do I?
9. 1 queen DOA along with all attendants, the other queens alive. Took pics of DOA queen and email to Rusell. Place 2 remaining in hives.
10. Received email from Russell saying they will mail replacement queen and will ship June 11th. I offered actually pay overnight shipping on the replacement queen. They graciously declined.
11. June 10, checked queens. Released but not laying.
12. I'll skip ahead....June 18th, both queens are gone having never layed an egg. No replacement queen in the mail yet.
13. Today, the 20th, still no replacement queen and no responses to emails that I've sent.

So, have I communicated well enough and do I qualify for "poor service" based on your definition? Numerous times, I have either had the shipping dates come and go and have had no response to attempted communications.

Seriously, you've got to stop defending the undefendable....my story pales compared to so many others. I only "lost" $100. Many have lost a great deal more.

[Beezly]

I'm confused hawk, #8 on YOUR list, leaving june 3rd for 9 days. Then # 11 on YOUR list, on the 10th, 7 days later checked the queens. Fuzzy math, or someone else checking your bees.
If you had someone else checking the bees that is adept enough to see if they are laying or not they could also while you are still out of town on your 9 day trip, install a queen cage in the hive. I understand your frustration as a consumer. I also understand Docs issues and am not defending the response his company has given to some of their clients. BUT, how's this working for you? I also have ordered a queen from them recently. I will wait until it gets here, period, i know it will come. BUT if it absconds, gets rolled, i kill it, it doesn't lay a bazillion eggs in the first 24 hours, its color is not quite right, it smells like avocados, i will NOT expect a FREE replacement due to some issue that may be my fault or just nature. I will not consider this a fault of their customer service. Dude, you buy a cow, it don't give milk, takes 3 steps and dies, that's livestock. If they sold you a bad cow, that's one thing, BUT if you did something, which from your own posts does not discount this as a possibility, take some responsibility for the fact maybe YOUR actions or the hives they were introduced to had something to do with the failure. Maybe it did, maybe not. just saying it may be a possibility, and maybe a slam session here may not be the proper avenue for your angst.
I thought this was the regular forum, not consumer section where this should have been, OR the whine line.
Maybe my meds are working right...
good luck to ya.

[seal62]

OK ,,,sometimes i just have to speak up ,,,and you all should now by now how near and dear this thread is to me soo .The reasons the queens arent laying well is because they were banked ..Every word i say is not open to discssion ,,,its fact . I bought, picked up 25 sunkist nucs last yr ..to be picked up in early june ..I got the run around and didnt get them until aug 8th ..The ad said ..3-4 frames of brood with the same laying queen . What i got was old comb ..only 3 had brood and the rest banked queens .Lets not forget the slime covered honey frames with shb . I got a extra 5 queens in a bank : in case something got squished in transit . The truth is i got 4lbs of bees shaken into nucs , The extra queens werent extra ,,they just werent put in the box . When i talked to bob he said ,,,are there enough bees ? Meaning tough on the brood ..when i asked about why they werent laying ,,,he said ,,,thats expected from banked queens ,,,when i said something about the shb he said thats to be expected . Really ? ...i drove 2000 miles and spent 3000$ on the trip for this ? He said he stands behind his bees and would send me packs to make up for it . Well its about july . I made a monster mistake and bought 10 moonbeams last june ,,,not a word about that 400$ . Now that i knew the deal i asked for a refund in april ,,,twinky got a pm where i asked for a refund ,,,did she bother to bring that up ? What sunkist i have left are up to 2 boxs ...for a overwintered nuc thats not impressive . I called pay pal and my bank ..the bank is a bigger hammer because they can bring charges . The product is worth the wait is just a fairy tale ..if you get a product . There is more to this than meets the eye ,bob talks a big game that he cant back up . Boys ,,,ladies ,,he's a snake oil salesman ...and for anyone that cares to call me out on this i got 100$ on the table that says he goes bankrupt to dodge his responsibilities before the season is out . In my vids i say where every queen is from ,,,eyes dont lie . Heres the worst http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtEdd32vO1c&feature=plcp . Its your money but if i defended someone ,,id rather go Adi Amin. PS ...i never did get one taker for the moonbeams @ 375$ ..its not to late to transfer that transaction .,,,seeing voice mail is full and they have selective email . Three words for you ..you were warned ...ok 4 ...repeatedly

[Keth Comollo]

We have been warned. If my Moonbeam shows up I will be shocked at this point. They did charge my card before shipping the product which I believe is a violation of FTC law which is, ladies and gentleman, is a violation of a Federal Law. This can't be good as my brother is a lawyer that loves doing pro bono work for me. ;-)

[giant pumpkin peep]

my moonbeams are doing well, nice like puppy dogs. Some of the other queens arnt doign so hot, but its probly becuase I had no time to introduce everyone correctly. live and learn. If I was to complain to russells I would be one of the many who have caused the reason for russell to go back to commercials. Was there some duds in this batch? with out a doubt yes, but I know that the 8 splits I made one day didnt all have duds, while 5 I did the other day all had top of the line queens. Learnt my lesson. I screwed up, oh well.

[theriverhawk]

Beezly,
Are you really gonna make me out to be the bad guy based on a typo and me coming back a day or two earlier?

I have NOT asked for money back on the queens that were released and then mysteriously "disappeared" before laying. The replacement queen I am speaking of in #12 is the DOA queen that I was told would be shipped on the 11th of this month. I do expect either a replacement queen or a refund. EVERY queen breeder does that. I, along with dozens of other folks, am still waiting on this replacement queen, again, that I WAS TOLD WOULD BE SHIPPED ON THE 11th.

Twinkie is a hack...and you are the next sucker/victim. You just sit back and wait on that queen to show up. If you only run a hive or two, you can afford it. If you're like so many of us that have future income that is dependent up the timing of splits, then we have the right to be angry. I did EVERYTHING I was told by Russell in order to get the queens by a certain date. I have a calendar that I operate on in order to make splits, grow them to make it thru winter so that I can split and sell nucs next spring. The one month delay on those three queens and now loss of all three has set me back over 6 weeks on 3 hives. I will not be able to make queens off of any of the 3 queens. In a nutshell, because of this, I will be unable to make 9 additional splits...$120X9=$1080 that I have potentially lost.

Over and over, folks are chiming in here sharing horrible experiences where they were mislead/decieved. I felt this way at first, backed off of it and even sent an apology email. After seeing the results of the queens I received, hearing stories of folks receiving "banked queens" and DOA queens not being honored with a replacement, I for one, am now of the belief that this group is exactly what folks are saying about them. The sad thing is that my story/experience PALES compared to what others have lost.

So, again, you just sit back and wait on that queen and nit pick our statements while ignoring the big picture....

[honeyshack]

8. Queens arrive Saturday, June 2nd. I am leaving 7:00AM on the 3rd for 9 days. Do I have time to run down to a yard to put queens in? Don't have much of a choice do I?
11. June 10, checked queens. Released but not laying.
12. I'll skip ahead....June 18th, both queens are gone having never layed an egg.
.

I am not commenting on the service or anything of that nature...upfront here.
What i am commenting on is the loss of the laying queens.
June 2 or 3rd you installed
June 10 checked for release and laying, noting nothing going on
Here is the crux of that problem. When installing queens, place them in so you can see the queen candy openning when you check 4 days later at the earliest! Place the cage in such a way that if the candy is not gone it will take very little to release, preferably with no frame removal. This is very important. On day 4 from install, only open the lid, check and if the candy is gone, close the lid. On day 12 then check for laying. Checking or disturbing the hive any more before that period and they will ball the queen. She needs time to go over the frames and spread her pheremones as well as to get the new eggs hatched out so the bees can get to work.
Edit:
One other thing. When we kill a queen or split and then re queen the next day, it is important to quickly check the frames. This year especially I am seeing the hives get started earlier than normal on making cells. I am finding that if I requeen the next day and if i am close to the 24 hour mark, they have already started cells. What I have found is they have superceded the new queen. Why, there were some small emergency supercedures. Those emergency cells are tricky. Some of them are very small and runty. They would almost pass for drone cells.

[GeezLouise]

...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.

Next time, "We dropped the ball, we apologize, and thank you for letting us know so we can make it right" would be more productive than stonewalling and excuses. It's okay to be overwhelmed, not so much to shift blame.

[NY_BLUES]

I made a monster mistake and bought 10 moonbeams last june ,,,not a word about that 400$ .

If you got burned on a bunch of nucs, why would you place an order for queens? Im confused?

[Beezly]

Hawk,
By no means am i trying to make you out to be the bad guy. If you came back early, ok, don't care. I have been reading all of the threads about these issues here and on russells site. You have made it a point to be very detailed in your many extracted posts and i just saw a couple of inconsistancies. I also don't care about typos. If i misunderstood that you were just waiting on 1 replacement, then i guess i misread something in the maze of posts concerning this.
My main point is that many have stated their issues here, and should. You seem particularly determined to get your point hammered home and i was just asking how is that working for you?

As for my order, i do not run just 1 hive, far from it, but due to some of what has been said here ordered just 1 in hopes of getting it. If i don't, then yep, i am a sucker. But you won't see me coming on here...many, many times to share my frustration about it. I'll lick my wounds and try to get my money back thru steps available to me.
No your not the bad guy. Just wondering when it will be that enough is enough.
and i still think all of these threads concerning this should have been in consumer section, not muddying the regular forum.
Good luck to all of us.

[theriverhawk]

Honeyshack...

That's hogwash....I've been keeping bees with my father since I was 5. On my own since my late 20's. I'm 45 now. In all those years, I've had 3. Yes, only 3 queens that were balled. 2 of them were the SK queens from this year. I've released probably hundreds of queens into hives from cages. To say that they are going to ball a queen because I open up the hive, pull a frame, see her and put the frame back in 8 days later(WITH NO SMOKE I MIGHT ADD...NOTHING), it just plain, flat out HOGWASH. I've opened a hive in fewer days and have seen the queen numerous times without this result. Plain hogwash. I've gotten PM's and emails from others on here that have had the same exact experience.

Beez, you're right. It's not getting anything accomplished by chiming in here. Most of us are responding to Twinkie's unbelievable/crazy defense of them. She is really the one that tries to turn the table on us jilted customers and somehow make it look like we are the one's at fault for coming on here and stating the truth. Funny thing is, every time she writes some hack of a defense, ANOTHER jilted customer pops on. My detailed response(with typos...oops), was a response to her trying to justify some poor service by them. I figured if I wrote out a more detailed experience, it might be more difficult for her to defend...and, again, my story PALES compared to others. I lost $100. Others have lost $1000's of dollars and have seen nothing in return. But you're right. It is beating a dead horse. They'll no longer be offering to the public after this year. Twinkie is trying to almost blame us for that happening, but in reality, they did it to themselves. For me, it's back to the NICOT system that I use a couple of times a year to make a batch of queens for splits. I will refrain from any additional comments....unless someone else responds with a ridiculous defense of their customer service.

[beeG]

those who have been upset over the CS of RA.. How are you going to react, and feel when things are made right? because all I have read about RA is of company owned by a man who does everything to make it right with the customer. These issues will never happen again because this is the last year RA is selling to the little guy. So RA identified the issue and is doing everything to avoid it. I have seen a few apologize. River RA already told you they would replace the dead queen, and you know as well as every other beekeeper about releasing queens. Did you just set them loose out of the cages? As for seals complaint he just seems hell bent to not get his money or a replacement, he seems more determined to mar RA reputation. As for being illegal to take a credit card before a client reseves merchandise. That is hog wash. How many merchants give products into the control of a customer before they are paid???? None with half a brain that I know of.. the largest percentage of internet transactions are pay first. A business sending product before payment will not last very long, not in this world.
I defend because I feel some of you are making fools of yourself. Sure you are harming RA but you are also harming yourself. If any of you become queen breeders or sell supplies, I personaly would not want to do business with you. Because how you are behaving is not professonal. And shows signs of a quick and unresonable temper. Doing any business with quick tempered and unresoanble people is nonhe productive. This beekeeping community is a small one, and with me writing this and if I became a queen breeder or sold supplies how would this post effect me?? In my view positivly because I am sure the worse of you would not want to do business with me.. Any business owner knows the worse part of business are the few crazies. I would seriously think before I wrote about negetive experinces. A good rule to go by is react as if RA was your friend . If by next year you are still disgruntled and it is not of your doing, then go for it. but all of you know what has happened here, with the bad weather, the deaths, and the understanding RA has admitted this is too much for them, so bare with them. Yet you keep on coming and get worse.

[frazzledfozzle]

Seal62 I've just checked out your youtube video re the Sunkists.

I dont see any honey or pollen in those frames not a drop? if she dosn't have at least a couple of frames of honey and some pollen she's not going to lay.

I've had a number of "lame" queens they dont need all their legs to walk and haven't noticed any big difference in egg laying ability.

[theriverhawk]

BeeG, this is RA's last year selling to "the little guy" because so many "little guys" have had such bad service that folks are out there talking about it. Is that our fault? As a matter of fact, you and many others, probably owe some folks on here a big fat THANK YOU. As for the release of the queens...geeze. I don't think I need to defend myself but here goes. I make a nuc/split/hive queenless for 24 hours, place the queen cage in the hive and allow the hive to release her on their own....JUST LIKE THE REST OF THE BEEK WORLD DOES IT AND HOW I'VE DONE IT FOR 20 YEARS AND MY FATHER HAD DONE IT FOR 40 YEARS. RA said they would replace the queen and ship June the week of June 11th. It's the 21st and STILL NO QUEEN. For the love of pete, do you "defenders" not get it? OVER AND OVER these folks tell you something and they don't do it. OVER AND OVER!!! That's what folks keep saying on here and, for some odd reason, people keep defending them??? BeeG, you can sit there and say you'd never buy nucs/queens/bees from me. Fine. But you've never worked with me. We've worked with them and we are warning folks. It's folks like you that hop on here midway and try to chime in and defend them having had NOTHING to do with the situation. Have you been mislead by them? No. We have. Do you they owe you $$? No. Others on here are. Scroll thru some earlier posts. A "refund" was denied by the bank because the funds weren't there. Did they say they'd send you queens on certain dates and not send them? No. Others on here have experienced that. Have you had to send them email after email, phone call after phone call with no response? No. Folks on here have.
I can guarantee you this...there have been folks that have read these posts that have chosen to not place orders because of our experiences. In some ways, our experiences have been a gift to them. Again, mine is minor compared to others. The point is mute after this summer. I, for one, am glad of that.
You can say we look "foolish". Fine. I am willing to be a "fool for the truth" any day.

[beeG]

river I have queens ordered myself.. heck just today I emailed them to add to that order.. I ordered my queens last year.. Why I did not get them. I asked to wait because of my possible usurpation. I then emailed them that my hives are now ready. I got emailed back that I was put back on this list, and I will wait. river I do not think you are a bad person, I just think you have jumped on the bandwagon. You know they are having issues, so why beat the dead horse? Have they told you No we will not help you? I think with all this lynch mob mentality, just caught you up in the scheme to try and keep kicking RA when it already admits it is down ,and is working as fast as possible to make things right. Is bee source really the place to resolve your issue with RA? Or are you just posting to send more harm their way? Did you purchase your bees through bee source? I mean come on. Anyone who writes negative warning emails on bee source are not doing so to rectify business dealings with RA!! They are doing it for negative attention. With RA claiming they are no longer selling small orders, then who the heck are you warning now??? Defenders as I am called and others like me, just do not find these post productive . I personally feel that once RA makes it right with you.. You will feel very bad. RR has written so many valuable post on this forum.. He has been very willing to help anyone who asked him through this forum. I just find it very heartless to keep attacking the man when he is down through this public forum.

[theriverhawk]

Is it jumping on the bandwagon when you say "me too" and then have to defend yourself for saying "me too"?

You may not find it productive, but some do. I know I would have found posts regarding folks' negative/positive experiences productive if I had been smart enough to research even more before I ordered. You don't find it productive because you've ordered and, it appears, you don't really care when/if you get your queens. Chime back in when/if you haven't received your queens and you're trying to get a refund/email returned/phone call answered like so many other folks or they've told you when you're queens will ship and you go ahead and make your splits based on that date...and they don't show. Or perhaps you won't really care if you do/don't get any of those. That's your choice to be treated poorly and not fight back. Or maybe you will. Until you've walked down our road, it's just not really fair for anyone to try to say we are the ones being unfair/unreasonable.

I'm done here...you can just keep putting your head in the sand.

[beeG]

Oh I care when my queens come.. But I also see the obvious, and me making a fool out of myself is not going to make my queens arrive any faster. As for negative posters one in particular( Laura) could not stop with the venom. She slashed RA bloody.. She then had everything made right so well, that she begged to have her post removed. At least the woman had enough humanity to feel embarrassed. But then again us women fight better with our tongues. Which some men take too much to heart.
River if RA does not make it right for you then OK, But if he does, how are you going to feel? and again how are these post helping people? are you trying to destroy his commercial business?
I also have no idea how making splits has to do with getting new queens? I have been making splits ,and I have tagged the hives I need to requeen.. This bee keeping business is not something you can get upset about if plans do not go exactly as planned. If you can not roll with the flow.. I do not see how you can grow. So many things seem to happen. I had equipment ordered from another company put on back order after I paid ,which caused me distress. Which taught me I better be prepared next time, and not wait until the last minute for badly needed woodware. It seems this is the nature of this industry, hurry up and wait, then learn real quick how to improvise, and deal with the cards you are dealt. . You can not control the weather, and you can not keep beating a dead horse. I do believe RA knows they have issues with CS.. And I do believe they have taken measures to avoid a repeat of this year by closing down small order sells.

[Stonefly7]

Very good point BG. RS is a fine person with good ethics and values. His company made an error by going to the "I want it now" consumer that they were unprepared to deal with. End of story. I believe they will make it right with everyone in due time. They also have a plan to put breeders in every state, so you can deal with someone local.

Sol made a great point early on about grafting some of your own queens. I believe everyone should give it a try. I have split many a hive and let them raise their own in a crunch. As we work the yards, we crack them off all the time. Re-queen later as I am better prepared. Most folks are afraid to give it a try.

Hawk, next year, give me a shout early on and I will bring you some cells, or if you prefere laying queens for free if you would like to have some new genitics. I have English Buckfast, or Danish Buckfast. I am just south of you, so its not that far. Then take five of those nucs, and make them nothing but brood builders. Keep yourself supplied through your own queen yards and nucs. You will have more than you can handle before you know it.

Kind regards