Dansk Farms

[lupester]

I placed an order with Dansk that was supposed to be shipped on the 15th of April. I tried to communicate with them when the queens did not ship out. Left phone messages and emails multiple times. Luckily they take payment through Amazon payment services so I asked for a refund after two weeks of no communication. I would stay away from them unless they get some customer service, unless of course you are withing driving distance and you can get your product when you pay.

Dansk Farms
Winter Park, Florida

[Rickert Apiaries]

I too am having issues with Dansk Farms. Having to ship late because of weather issues is understandable, but when they won't respond to phone or email after several attempts I am assuming at this point that they have decided to keep my money.

No refund, No Queens, No communication!

I will keep you updated.

[AstroBee]

Their website says pre-order for May 28th. Perhaps they are having problems.

Likely unrelated, but I saw this statement on their site: "Warning to novice beekeepers: The queen cannot create a hive herself. Our queens will be shipped with attendant bees but these aren't enough for a viable hive."

This gives me a little pause as to who they might be dealing with and what experience led them to place such a warning.

[lupester]

"Their website says pre-order for May 28th. Perhaps they are having problems."

When I ordered it said pre-order for April 15th. When I ordered it was January.

[cowdoc]

Likely unrelated, but I saw this statement on their site: "Warning to novice beekeepers: The queen cannot create a hive herself. Our queens will be shipped with attendant bees but these aren't enough for a viable hive."

AstroBee,

I have had this kind of question / comment from a customer. They were trying to decide if they should spend the big bucks for the whole package or just get a queen and let her attract her own bees. There are sometimes some poor assumptions made by those new to beekeeping. The more clear the communication, the less chance of having to refund or answer a lot of questions from an upset customer.

Chris Cripps
Chris@betterbee.com

[Rickert Apiaries]

Just spoke with Dansk Farms. He is in fact behind schedule due to weather related issues and is working things out with me. If anything changes I will give an update.

[BeeTax]

Ordered 4 for April 8th shipping. No reply to email but finally got thru by phone at night on April 16th. Got an email the next morning (Wednesday) that my queens had shipped. Set up hives for the queens and they did not arrive. Reached them by phone last week an he had been in the hospital. Was behind and would try to get them in the mail soon.

The queens arrived today in good shape but I had to juggle things around a bit to take care of them. I know it has been a tough Spring for raising queens and appreciate that my order was filled, but good communicating goes a long way to keeping customers happy.

[Michael Bush]

I'm not saying some of you don't have legitimate complaints, and I know nothing about Dansk Farms, but keep in mind that a one man show can fall behind quickly with just one thing going wrong. If more than one thing goes wrong (like health and weather) it can get overwhelming in a hurry with no one to take over the slack. This isn't like selling widgets that you have already in a warehouse, it's selling something that is perishable and very dependent on many things, including your constant work to produce them.

Once things fall behind, one can quickly find oneself spending every waking hour talking to customers when one needs to be in the beeyard raising queens...

[BeeTax]

Agreed. However, a quick email can be sent to a lot of customers at once telling them that things are running behind. This would likely free up time because everyone would not be calling to find out the status of their ordered queens.

I too, am a one man operation, and when I ordered queens for April 8th, I started getting hives set up to be ready to accept the queens when they arrived. When the queens did not come at the expected time, I moved the boxes back below an excluder so that more eggs and brood could be put in them. I repeated this process when I received the email on April 17th that the queens had shipped. And again yesterday when they finally arrived, but without any advanced notice.

I truely understand that a lot of things can happen to delay the delivery of queens, but I think it saves the producer and the purchaser valuable time to communicate what is happening so that appropriate steps can be taken to deal with the delay.