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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"
 
#118 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

He was very convincing on here. I looked forward to reading his posts because I believed I was learning from a real expert with both educational trining and real life experience. His website is very professional. I can see how people could have been misled into investing with him.
 
#121 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

>Someone who knows is this the face to the name??

I don't know any faces here, but the photo xcugat linked to is a person 53 years old. The one involved in this thread is 32 according to the Rankin County Sheriffs's arrest report in post #116.
 
#123 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

I met rob Hughes or Robert Russell or whoever he is and that isn't him. I'm sure there are plenty of Robert Russell's though. I haven't seen the pic Special K is talking about but I would bet that it is the same man I talked to in ms as well. The place was a dump and I knew when I left there things didn't add up. I got 5 nucs from him and if they came from BSH bees I'm sorry about that too but they are all dead. They where some of the sorriest nucs I've ever seen and one superceded the queen about a week after I got them home. I complained about how subpar they were but like every one else here who was taken I was just spitting in the wind. In the end I hope the man gets what's coming to him. Good riddance.
Major
 
#125 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

MSBEEINSPECTOR
Thank you for clarifying that for us, as many of us dont know the lay of the land in MS. This is indeed a sad, sad ordeal. Many of us have been taken by a very good con man, that used his dads name to further his financial status. Somewhere he has a lot of other peoples money, and likely where none of us will ever see it again.
As sub producers we were given the same song and dance that the public was, about tornados hitting the office, deaths of crew members, issues with cell shipments, etc... all of which I believe to be made up by Robert Russell. I believe that Robert acted alone, or possibly with the PDG honey guy on the russellapiaries.com site. We were conned just like all the folks here.
 
#126 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

I have issued most of the refunds for queen orders through Russell Apiaries NY site. I will get the remaining few refunded tomorrow. I sold nucs from the site also, but the nucs were not sourced from Russell Apiaries, but from my own bees and from a friends apiary. I will have the nucs ready in April and May, just as planned originally.

I have had people want to know some information.

I started Allegany Mtn Bee Farm in 2010, prior to my association to Russell Apiaries. I produced an Italian/Carniolan hybrid, that was open mated to local stocks of bees. I will continue to raise and sell queens, but not until I settle up with those folks who ordered queens from Russell Apiaries NY, which will be tomorrow. I am not going to make people wait for a refund of their own money.
 
#127 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

This is like the guy who claim he was going to be bringing bees to people his name was rory boloware remember him and he stiffed alot of folks out of their money
and never made good on his word sounds to me we all need to take care of who has to much hype about what they got until we or others had has some kind of dealing with them. I am very careful with people i get queens from and i have my favorites and they have done very well by me so lets all beware of these so-called bee breeders who carry so many so-called strains of bees like cedar glen they are fakes too are they still in business.

Thomas
 
#128 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

AS I have said... it is rather a privilege for queen/package producers to be paid in advance for their work. That is why a bee producer should take those prepayments very seriously and be SURE he doesn't stiff anyone, which goes back to what JN Russell always said.. " If you can raise good bees you can always sell them"
AND really... all the exaggerations, smoke and mirrors, and lies wouldn't have mattered if people had gotten their orders and the bees were good. He inherited good bees no doubt.... and if he had spent even HALF the effort to making bees as he spent making that website and the facade around himself... no one here would have complained even if he had claimed to be the king of a 3rd world country.
After all is said and done... I hope people will discuss what sold them on his bees.... because I am very interested in that. He had a VERY good thing going... and the only thing missing was his ability to fulfill orders. Any queen producers that want to increase their market share.... would be looking close at his business model. I am still amazed by what he did.... and I really want to know what each of the people here were sold on. Was it his father's reputation? The fancy website? His knowledge on the forums? The 12 exotic races of bees? What convinced the Sub's to buy in on his system?

I dont think ANY of the sub's knew what was going on FWIW.... but I think many of us here would like to know what convinced people to get in on his sub program. He had what seems to me a PERFECT business model....
So I hope the discussion will eventually roll around to what convinced people to buy in to all of his cons....
Thanks
 
#133 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

.... and I really want to know what each of the people here were sold on.
For me, it was a combination of the following things:

1) Glowing reviews from beesource members who actually received and worked with his SK queens.
2) His apparent knowledge of many things related to bees.
3) His ability to communicate in written forums.
4) The fact that he came from a long-established beekeeping family with a good reputation.
5) His connections to trusted beesource contributors.
6) And yes, his website was good too. Looking at his website was like setting a kid in a candy store.

All these things came together to sucker people in. Gratefully, I never threw down my money, but I came VERY close.

I agree with you Sippy, that he had the potential to really make this happen, which also contributed to the likelihood of people buying into this scam.
 
#130 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

Checking their website I notice PGNhoney? posted 12 hours ago about classes he is offering. Just out of curiosity has anyone ask him to comment on what is going on? Has anyone tried to post on their site with this link to warn potential nuc and queen purchasers. I wonder what would happen to a post asking about the health of Robert, if it would get deleted or would stay up for a while. I still have hopes of receiving the nuc I ordered last year but it is looking bleak, very bleak. Amazing that there have been no posts on this site from the Russels or an employee trying to defend themselves.

The sub producers, except for NYbees have been very quiet, has anyone seen their posts elsewhere?

Can the sheriff's department shut down a website if it proves to be operated to commit fraud? It appears "Rob Hughes" is still taking orders for nucs to be picked up in Central MS and I had a private message with him as recently as Feb 11 to schedule pickup of a nuc he owes me.
 
#134 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

The sub producers, except for NYbees have been very quiet, has anyone seen their posts elsewhere?
In the interests of full disclosure, I was a member of the sub producer program. I never sold anything under the Russell name though.

From the limited discussions I've had with some of the members after this information came out, I think I may have been the only member of the sub-producer program that met him in person and can positively identify him. I wasn't aware of this until recently. I thought many other members had met him. And by him, I mean Robert Russell and/or "Rob Hughes".
 
#131 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

I ordered queens from him 3 years ago, had some issues with communication and the timing of the shipment. I posted my experience here and people really slayed me for not understanding how things can be for a producer. I understood that weather effects the industry but always felt there was something not right about the inherent difficulty in contacting his staff- it just didn't seem right.
 
#132 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

Checking their website I notice PGNhoney? posted 12 hours ago about classes he is offering. Just out of curiosity has anyone ask him to comment on what is going on? Has anyone tried to post on their site with this link to warn potential nuc and queen purchasers. I wonder what would happen to a post asking about the health of Robert, if it would get deleted or would stay up for a while.
You will notice that he denies selling nucs in one post, since this broke. He's in this up to his neck and looking for a way out.
 
#136 · (Edited)
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

When my orders kept getting delayed last year I sent a PM to Robert or Rob telling them that I was coming on a certain date and that I was leaving with either bees or a refund. I met and spent several hours with Phillip Butts (of PDG Honey Farm) and "Rob Hughes."
I left with the number of nucs I ordered and the number of queens I ordered but not the SKC because they didn't have any.

Another member provided this link: https://www.vinelink.com/vinelink/initMap.do

You click on the state of Mississippi, then enter the name Robert Russell, select age range 31-35, and it brings up his profile. Click on "show photo" and there is a picture of the man that introduced himself to me as Rob Hughes.
 
#137 · (Edited)
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

I met someone in Hattiesburg to pick up a couple of nucs spring of 2011. He was in his early 30s, around 200 - 220 lbs, dark hair. I thought he identified himself as Bob Hughes. We met in Hattiesburg because Russel had out yards in the area.

In retrospect I remember hearing about how they kept their breeding colonies on islands of the MS coast. That was the reason they would be gone for such long stretches of time "helping Dr Hughes or Dr. Russel" rebuild the colonies on the island after a storm. It sounded like a great idea and would be a good way to build a pure strain, isolating them on an island, but having lived on the Gulf Coast my entire life I could never identify anything far enough off-shore to call it an isolated island. Who was I do disagree with them?

I mentioned these threads to a long time member of our local club and he basically smiled and looked around the room. Not sure what that means but I guess there are a lot of people in the club that had a great relationship with the family at one time. I explained the condition of the nucs when I picked them up, talked about how I took care of them and how they died. I complained that I must be a lousy beek, quite possible since 2011 was my first year. After listening for a minute he smiled again and said that I had bad nucs. I did the right things and strong nucs would have build up and survived.

Why did I buy from Russel Apiaries? Because when I started into beekeepping they where the only ones to have late season nucs available. They also had a great presence on the forums and a lot of people that liked their bees.

Live and learn, I am going to keep a positive but sceptical attitude about this situation. Not much else I can do. As previously stated on Feb 11 they promised delivery end of March, beg of April.

Al
 
#142 ·
Re: Robert Russell is a fraud

" I am going to keep a positive but sceptical attitude about this situation. Not much else I can do. As previously stated on Feb 11 they promised delivery end of March, beg of April."

Al, alll I can say is, I sure hope you get your nuc...... even through all this... good luck....keep us posted if you do.
 
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