[ColeB]

Hello everyone, I was recently looking for Caucasian Queens and someone suggested a place called Old Sol apiaries, they have a good looking website, and from what this guy said, they have good product and a good Customer Service department, which sounds pretty good to me. But I was reading lately on another Community about a place called Winter's Apiaries in Parrotsville, TN that had some pretty awful reviews, but at the same time some very good ones.

I was wondering if anyone had dealings with these folks and if they can verify what I was told on the other Community, Thanks for any replies guys, and Happy Beekeeping, Cole.

 

[Flyer Jim]

Nothing but the best to say about John and his queens. Good queens and good service. I drove 6 hours one way to buy some of his queens. Oh yeah, I went fishing too.
But seriously, John has good queens and I've always been happy with them .

Jim

 

[jkola404]

Sounds like you answered your own question.... John from Old Sol is a member here I think he goes by JBJ.

 

[beedeetee]

I raise my own queens now, but they are daughters (and grand grand grand...daughers) of John's stock.

 

[Just Krispy]

Our club ordered from Winters this year. Many delays on the queen delivery and when they arrived, we weren't notified ahead of time to let our post office know.

 

[estreya]

Beedeetee (hi, neighbor!), how are you doing with mites this year? My husband and i ordered "hygienic" queens and are a bit surprised by the mites we're seeing in our hives. Knock wood, our bees will survive the winter, but if they don't, we're considering Old Sol Apiaries for next year.

 

[Honey-4-All]

Beedeetee (hi, neighbor!), how are you doing with mites this year? My husband and i ordered "hygienic" queens and are a bit surprised by the mites we're seeing in our hives. Knock wood, our bees will survive the winter, but if they don't, we're considering Old Sol Apiaries for next year.

Would you be willing to explain to me where you got the crazy notion that hygienic queens are necessarily mite resistant? The 2 are not paired together as many folks have an inclination to conjure up out of whole cloth..... You have mixed up VHS/SMR with Hygenic..... NOT THE SAME THING...... More people have this confused than just about any gene issues in beekeeping.

 

[estreya]

From this video ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5vVrAy6CEU

... among other places.

 

[beedeetee]

Beedeetee (hi, neighbor!), how are you doing with mites this year? My husband and i ordered "hygienic" queens and are a bit surprised by the mites we're seeing in our hives. Knock wood, our bees will survive the winter, but if they don't, we're considering Old Sol Apiaries for next year.

I've tried various ways of not treating for mites, but all have failed. I don't treat any first year hives or hives that have had a brood break. If I have hives dropping more than 40/day right about now, I treat them. If I wasn't going to treat, I would just make sure that they all had a brood break in June. I haven't noticed that John's queens did any better than anyone else with mites but I like them for everything else.

 

[estreya]

Excellent. Thanks for the information, Beedeetee, and continued good luck with your hives!

 

[RiodeLobo]

Hello everyone, I was recently looking for Caucasian Queens and someone suggested a place called Old Sol apiaries, they have a good looking website, and from what this guy said, they have good product and a good Customer Service department, which sounds pretty good to me.

I bought 3 from them spring 2013, and two are my best hives this summer. One dudded out in the fall of 2013 (just never expanded). I will buy more in the future. This is the second fall with them, no treatments. The real test is this winter, if they come through good I will be impressed.

 

[waynesgarden]

Actually, the owners of both companies have been members here, but I believe that is the only similarity. I have only heard good things about Old Sol. As for the other, well unless a leopard can change its spots (and not just its name) there is this thread:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?232835-Dealings-with-Long-Creek-Apiaries

Wayne

 

[Honey-4-All]

The video with Mr Ellis is excellent. I had the opportunity to sit next to him at a research dinner years back. Well spent hours at that table. He is a fount of knowledge and a great researcher.

Being that said you will notice at 18 minutes in the video he says all the genetic stuff will eventually fail. When they were still available we used to purchased many AI MH queens from Glenn's. They were fantastic queens but the scuttlebutt that they are at all "low mite" as mentioned in the video is a bunch of bull. They were what I would title "the best bees that weren't" . James can say one thing but our experience with "Hygienic" bees being Varroa resistant just is not true. Quite the opposite indeed. Would love to see you drop a few names of people running hundreds if not thousands of them that still don't pour on the miticide of one sort or another.

Sorry to say but the video is incorrect if it leads you to believe buying any queen with a title that starts with "HY" will cure your Varroa ills!

Enough from the 'grumpy guy."

 

[ColeB]

Thanks for all the replies guys, he sounds like a really pleasurable person to do business with, I will very likely order Queens from him next year.