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Robert Russell Apiaries - Update

204K views 407 replies 96 participants last post by  AstroBee 
#1 ·
I wanted to let everyone know some of the information that I discovered while trying to figure out who stole my hives. Robert Russell is running a big scam. He was going by the name Rob hughes on the phone and in person saying that rob hughes was Roberts employee and crew chief. He is very good at this and always referred to Robert as "Doc" in the third person. He even sent me PM's stating Rob was in Florida running their bees there and he was all over the country tending bees. I discovered this after the sheriffs office showed me a mug shot of Robert Russell and it was the same person I had been working with calling him self rob hughes. I personally do not believe he has more than a few hive and does not have all these different strains. Any strains he does have must of came from his fathers operation. The sheriff's office also told us he was charged in Philadelphia MS with taking someones money for bees and never delivering them. I believe most of the people working for him and running his "Russell apiaries family" sites also know all this. I would recommend anyone with orders with anyone associated with Robert Russell cancel them. The man is a dishonest crook. I speculate but have no proof that he was taking my bees all year long and selling them as nucs with phillip butts, one of his "employees"
 
#163 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

50% loss so far. Obtained bees rather late in season (August). One nuc failed immediately...never found a queen...combined it with another which is surviving. I actually did receive an email from RR in July saying my nucs were ready and to arrange a pickup date. It was repeated attempts to contact after that which they ignored for weeks. In some of the emails I sent to them I stated the date that I would be arriving for pickup. It should have been no surprise. Queens which I agreed to take from a sub later, also poor performance...again late season was the probable main factor...but I just didn't want to chance waiting for next year for my orders to come. Given the experiences the last few months, I feel somewhat fortunate to have received anything at all. I will treat my survivors as if they are the magic bees which were promised by RR...who knows?
How did the bees do?
 
#153 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

There was a thread a couple of weeks ago started bu someone WHO siad their hives went missing after being housed on Russell's property. Link below shows photos of those bees marked BHS (or BSH?...sorry, my tablet makes it difficult to hop between links without losing something...).

http://s1040.beta.photobucket.com/user/RussellApiaries/library/

Wonder what happened with those missing hives and the investigation? Does anyone remember the title of that thread?

Ramona
 
#154 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

There was a thread a couple of weeks ago started bu someone WHO siad their hives went missing after being housed on Russell's property. Link below shows photos of those bees marked BHS (or BSH?...sorry, my tablet makes it difficult to hop between links without losing something...).

http://s1040.beta.photobucket.com/user/RussellApiaries/library/

Wonder what happened with those missing hives and the investigation? Does anyone remember the title of that thread?

Ramona
That was me and yes the bees are still missing. The sheriffs office and the state ag theft departement are still looking, but I am not expecting much as it would be to easy to move the bees to new equipment. MS is so thick you would never see anything. They will only find them if someone like phillip or one of his other employees (steve, blaine, scott are the ones I have met) talk.
if you follow the links in post 140 that is the guy that introduced himself as rob hughes on both occasions that I met him.
 
#156 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

yes, I was wondering about all the nucs being made and picked up in the yard last fall if any had the BSH labels on them?? Wouldn't be too hard to make some assumptions!! Especially all the folks arriving unannounced, duh, let's try these....
 
#161 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

I just wanted to let everyone here know what I know. There was a group of us that were "sub producers" for Russell Apiaries. We were from all over the US, and we were supposed to receive breeder queens from Robert Russell. Also Russell Apiaries was supposed to arrange advertising, via internet and bee magazines, for the group. There was supposed to be a woodenware supplier where we could order items from and receive a good discount on the items ordered. We were offered use of yards in MS for overwintering of colonies. Other products, such as queen rearing and shipping supplies were supposed to be sent to us to use and try. These were the major perks of the sub producers program.

Here is a list of what we got:

Some folks got a few "breeder" queens, but many orders from us went unfilled or we received them so late in the year they all died out
No woodenware supplier to received discounts from
No advertising in any bee journals or magazines
No queen supplies ever sent
Yards that were offered up for overwintering... well MTINAZ can tell you how that went.... fortunatly I dont think that any sub producer took him up on the offer to overwinter colonies in MS

There was never any association with PDG honey and the Sub producers group. Robert and "Rob Hughes" was our contact in the group. Communication was just as poor as it was for the rest of the world. Emails and questions went unanswered, requests for breeder queens, products and services never fulfilled. In hindsight, it was a joke. I cant believe that we were suckered like that. In the beginning, his reputation was still very good, and few folks had late or missing orders. As time went on, it was pretty clear that there were more un shipped queens all the time.
On a lighter note, all Queen orders that I received from folks at Russell Apiaries NY, have been contacted and refunded in full. Hopefully this will allow me to clear the air with many folks and get back to doing what I like to do, raise queens.
 
#162 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

I was also part of the "sub-producer" program but did not sell anything and paid a small portion of the $3000 but stopped after I got a funny feeling. The production bees I received from him were good and I thought it would be a good stepping stone. I could learn the business of producing queens, make some contacts, and then step out on my own. This is a blow more to my pride than my pocketbook.

I think I understand now how he was able to sell larger amounts of queens (I don't know any exact numbers). The simple answer is I don't think he produced them himself. I have been in contact with some CA beekeepers that produced queens for him. I don't know what he did with the bees after he got them but I would guess he was reselling them at twice what he was paying for them. I'm not sure if they were using his breeders or if he was just reselling standard breeds as his brand (sunkist/moonbeam/etc.)
 
#164 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

Well i got news thru my e-mail today from one of the sub-producers saying that he now know of the fraud and will not be selling bees but i do see this pdg honey guy still posting on roberts web page so it makes you think he might be in on this i also see that russell has not answered any posts on his forum in months. So that should tell people that if this guy does not answer his on forum then that should be a red flag. As far i am concerned he is ruined back last year a guy i know got bees from him but he got them late in the fall half died and the ones that lived well did real good i got one of them and she is still doing good but why lie if you know you could not handle the load why not just tell folks they would have under stood.I spoke to the late Mr. Russell and he was a nice guy and told me that he was sold out he did not beat around the bush but this guy that is his son use his dads name to be more then he is and now he mess is catching up to him. Ny Blues i am not blaming you you got suckered in but you need to let the other sub - producers know what is going on before they make claims they can not back up.

Thomas
 
#165 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

Hmm, post #140...that boy sho' looks a bit narrow 'tween his eyes, don't he...



A good thing that I'm seeing is that some good folks who were at odds with each other are coming back together...that's a good thing. As for the one that caused such a problem...I think he's beginning to get his just dues...with more to come. Like most crooks he was stupid and didn't realize he couldn't get away with things forever and will probably squall the "I didn't mean to hurt nobody" song. :rolleyes:

Ed
 
#168 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

Mr Lyon You snake! You just keep heaping the humiliation on the gullible set like me! Don't worry, I don't take it personal, I have been a trusting dolt my whole life! As soon as my expected herd of jackalopes arrive, I am thru with mail order~!
 
#169 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

Vance: actually until my last post I have treaded pretty carefully on this subject knowing that lots of people have been victimized. I know Vance was joking but there is a real dark side to this whole affair.
 
#172 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

Wow this is crazy. I would never have guessed it went this deep. Every good scam normally has just enough truth to keep pulling people in. I think he knew what he was doing by the time he started the whole sub producer thing. It had already started to unravel here and he took the opportunity to move on to one more group of beekeepers.

I did like reading his post, he did know how to talk the talk so to speak.
 
#181 ·
#184 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

This will be the only thing that I post on this topic Yes I got sucked in with all the bells and wistles and I gave him about $250 for some just about usless Queens out of 12 only two made it through the summer and they both stunk on ice.But I thought that was just the luck of the draw now I know why.This young man if he has any feelings at all about his Dad he should know that his name and his strand of Queens is mud now and I hope he has real trouble sleeping at night but I doubt it.I just hope that the state will step in and prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.What is so sad is that this man had potential he had some great knowledge about our craft and if he had trully applyed himself he coulda been a great force for the progress of beekeeping but instead he used his intelligence to rip people off.
 
#185 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

Not sad at all about the RRussell's potential...I would think he had very little at becoming a beekeeper because his focus was on bilking people out of their money. Now as a potential political candidate for a major office in government....yes, he had/has tremendous potential.

His writings were almost too professional for someone of his ilk to produce. I really wonder if perhaps JN Russell may have had some papers that RRussell got his script from...if that was the case wouldnj't it be interesting to read those papers. Some of the issues of shb would have had to be improvised on. I recall reading a thread that RRussell started where he stated that he had "set aside" 1000 colonies for studying varied shb treatments...1000 colonies?...he could really spin one. He was intelligent enough to be able to see the current state of beekeeping and issues facing beekeepers and to create appealing dialogue and fantasies that was attractive and interesting to legitiment beekeepers...the fact that he was the son of an apparently well respected queen breeder only helped to win over the hesitant beeks.

My doubts about him were made concrete when small buyers began to report that bees were not being shipped and that requested refunds were not being given. A person that had the resources to "set aside" 1000 hives for a "study" should have certainly been able to refund one or two hundred dollars that had been entrusted to him. I mean, with his gigantic commercial business, airplane, island breeding yards, etc.,..refunding a few paltry thousand to hobbyists should have been no problem. That's when I wondered if he was in the seafood business rather than the bee business...something smelled fishy.

I sympathize with those that were ripped off. It is sad that Russell Apiaries will most likely be remembered for Robert Russell's crookedness rather than JN Russells hard work.

Best wishes to all hoping that ya'll can recoup some or all of your losses. Depends on whether RRussell has any real property as I doubt there's much cash laying around. As a friend has told me on occasion...you can't get blood from a turnip but you sometimes you can get the turnip.

Ed
 
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