Ethics question r/e nuc sales

[johnpfaff]

If I sell a nuc with a purchased queen in it, can I tell the buyer where the queen came from?
Can I advertise the nuc as headed by a (fill in the blank) queen?

[BeeCurious]

That's what I plan to do if I have any "spare" bees in the spring. I purchased some Carniolans in the summer and started new colonies. I don't see any problem selling nucs with known queens.

It would even warrant a premium in my opinion.

[deknow]

I can't imagine any ethical problem in selling any kind of nuc, as long as you are being honest about it.

deknow

[Ian]

If I sell a nuc with a purchased queen in it, can I tell the buyer where the queen came from?
Can I advertise the nuc as headed by a (fill in the blank) queen?

Yes, if your newly introduced queen is laying, she is heading up that colony, just a matter of weeks before all the workers and drones are hers

[Mbeck]

It may even add value to your product.
Who's queens where you thinking of using?

[johnpfaff]

Thanks, I will probably buy the queens for my first nucs for sale. I don't have the numbers to advertise any of my queens as anything but half breeds.
Later,
John.

[Ian]

Id advertise your queens as locally produced, and if you had brought in some specific genetics to graft from, Id include that also,
locally produced "such and such" queens

[Rick 1456]

How long after introducing the queen to your nuc before you send them out the door? Some folks have different definitions of what a nuc is.
Rick

[AstroBee]

I think Rick has a good point. There are lots of different views of what makes a nuc. But if I were the prospective buyer, I would expect that the brood present in the nuc is a result of the resident queen. I don't consider a nuc is simply three frames of brood and 2 stores with a queen dropped in then sold within a week. I suggest that you evaluate the performance of the queen over a few weeks to ensure that she is good (laying well is a minimum). Purchased queens can be a real mixed bag, and you don't want to sell a nucs that hasn't been evaluated for a while prior to sale. Of course advertise that these are not local queens.

[Ian]

Alot of guys sell slabs of brood with bees, with or without queen. Nuc is a nuc,

[mac]

Alot of guys sell slabs of brood with bees, with or without queen. Nuc is a nuc,

Yep there a lot of crappy nucs for sale these days

[johnpfaff]

I would make up the nuc, add queen, then evaluate for three weeks or so before sale - sound reasonable to you all?

Later,

John.

[Rick 1456]

There in lies the question,,,,,,,,ethics,,,,,,,,,,,,,Might be like Nucs,,,,,folks have different ideas on what they are. There's a recent post on the forum on a similar situation. I think the OP wants to put their head head down on the pillow and sleep well. Good trait in my book.
Rick

[Ian]

Yep there a lot of crappy nucs for sale these days

nope, three slabs of brood and bees, supplied with a queen or not, thats as basic as you can get.
Some sell nucs with wintered queens (as I do ) others make up nucs in the spring while slimming down hives to which the buyer can buy a queen or cell

I dont know why you think these are crappy nucs?

[Beregondo]

If someone sells me a nuc and tells me it is a Weaver Buckfast queen or a Russell Sunkist queen and in fact it as a daughter of one of those, it is a half breed and he is a fraud, unless the queen is produced under terms and according to practices defined in the breeder's license.

This protects the consumer, because the breeder's means of ensuring specific genetic traits are preserved and he gets them in his bees.

It protects the breeder because it prevents someone from damaging his reputation by selling bees in his name without the quality control associated with it, and protects him from being defrauded of any licensing fee he may charge for use of his intellectual property (knowledge of how to get that set of traits), reputation, and name.

If someone buys queens from a breeder's program and introduces them to newly made nucs and sells them before they are accepted, he runs the risk of the queen being rejected, the buyer finding himself with a queenless nuc, and and the buyer rightly warning his friends of poor nuc quality, and having his reputation ruined.

If you want to use someone's name to sell your nucs, it's not our opinion on the forum that matters, it's his.
Call him up and ask his permission to use his name.

It is, after all, his name.

If you are afraid or unwilling to to so, your consicience has probably already advised you on the ethics of the matter.

[Ian]

breeders sell breeder queens for producers to graft from. They will charge anywhere from $300 to $500 for that queen.
If your grafting from that queen, that breeders genetics is in the lineage of your offspring. Its part of the pedigree
Having the breeder queen bought from the breeder, and used to graft for your own stock, gives you the right to include the breeders name in your grafted queens pedigree. they have to be identified as open mated and such, and anyone who buys an open mated queen know what they are getting.

accusing fraud is quite a stretch unless your claiming to be supplying those queens under the breeders name

[Acebird]

I can't imagine any ethical problem in selling any kind of nuc, as long as you are being honest about it.

deknow

I'll second what Dean said as the best response. If you are honest and tell the potential customer what you have done not leaving out anything that would cause the customer to assume. It is ethical.

[Beregondo]

I'm addressing the second question the OP posed Ian:
"Can I advertise the nuc as headed by a (fill in the blank) queen? "

I qualified my statement saying, "unless the queen is produced under terms and according to practices defined in the breeder's license."
A person selling queens open breeded from breeder queens would be complying with that, wouldn't he?
Absent any more restrictive terms imposed by the breeder wouldn't industry accepted practice constitute such license?

Do you think it imprudent that I direct his attention to the source of the queens, whom he must have contact with to purchase a breeder queen, rather than we who have no knowledge of any specific terms of name use or even whether a breeder queen is being discussed here?

Additionally, no accusation is here made, but an opinion that if the conditions defined in my statement existed, then fraud would exist...and indeed it would.

[Saltybee]

There are overwintered nucs ,spring nucs and made up nucs. If both parties know what the product is each is a worthwhile nuc.
Is it ethical to sell a nuc as so and so's queen? Are you doing it ethically with disclosure? then yes. Just remember the queen you put in may not be current queen.
As for using a breeder's name as the queen source, if a breeder does not want someone to use the name of their product when they resell it, you need to make that part of your terms of sale.

[Ian]

I'm addressing the second question the OP posed Ian:
"Can I advertise the nuc as headed by a (fill in the blank) queen? "

What I said was
>>locally produced "such and such" queens<<

what I should of said was open mated instead of locally produced. I meant it to mean the same. So it was me that caused some confusion,
I did not say headed by a (such and such) queen
When they sell a breeder queen out of their op, that is exactly what they are doing, providing their genetics to be used in others breeding programs. You dont need a licence to raise open mated queens