I am having trouble finding sites to order bees online and have them shipped. I see that they are for sale on Pigeon Mountain Trading Company, and I was wondering if this is a good site to order from. Is there a better one? Any advice? Thanks!!!
Aren't you up north? (filling your location in your profile would help) Most (not all by a long shot) northern beeks prefer to buy northern bees in that they may be acclimated to northern weather.
Scott
Kellybees.com is a long time highly reputable supplier of bees and equipment. I don't use them because the shipping would kill me but you never hear a bad word about their products and you hear good things about their bees. Ya know, Danno is from your general vicinity. You should PM him and ask where he gets his bees and supplies. Maybe he would sell you bees if he has extras or know someone local who does. THe advice that comes from the closest to your bee yard is usually preferable to someone far away and danno has a good head.
Thank you both for your input. I've been looking at Spille Honey as well...they are closer to my area and have Russians (which I was looking for)!
Check to see if there is a local bee club, you may fine someone there with what you want. Or they can recomend someone local.
Joe
I would definitely recommend looks elsewhere and not buying from pigeon mountain if at all possible. My experience is they have very poor communications and customer service. You can read about my dealings with them here -> http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,38217.msg325573.html#msg325573 (http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,38217.msg325573.html#msg325573)
I was having trouble finding bees last year so I ordered from pigeon mountain trading company. Never received bees. No money back. Lack of communication. I should have read the reviews on Yelp and YP (yellow pages) and talked to other beekeepers first as I now know there have been a lot of people burned by this company. Heck, I would buy bees in a bag at a MacDonald's drive through before I would try these folks again.
I have never bought bees from PMt but I know people who do and I have never herd any of them complain. And their bees seem to do good. I think UPS lost a bunch of packages on an airplane for them last year.
I have never bought from them, but there is no excuse for non delivery and yet no money back, imo. If UPS or whomever lost their shipment then they should of been reimbursed, as they are the shipper.... it seems really insane for them to of gotten reimbursed via insurance, still got paid by the customer as well, thus making double and still not delivering product or giving that customer a refund.
One guy I know was given a package this year by Pigeon Mt. to replace the one that was lost on the plane by UPS.
ya, but you said the incident on the plane happened last year...and now say this year they gave them a free package. That seems like a excessive amount of time to me, and as I said, they take a package of bees, and they sell it and make a profit. that is business, and ok whatever. then the package gets lost and they file and receive a claim presumably, for what it is worth, which includes their profit...so it is costing them one package of bees, and they make profit off the customer, and a total profit again with the claim. and when do they make good, the next year, after their bees do the work and they just have the basic expense again? seems wrong to me.