In this series of Buyer Beware articles, I share some personal experiences as well as some pitfalls and challenges that new beekeepers that I have come into contact with have experienced. Buyer Beware | Part 1 focused on getting the right information from the seller prior to making a commitment to purchase nucs or full hives. Buyer Beware | Part 2 focused on what you may be faced with when acquiring 'abandoned' or 'rescue' hives.
Now, let's talk about the repercussions of doing business with undesirable sellers.
The Six Hives
A new beek purchased 6 hives which were installed on the property by the seller. The arrangement was the seller was going to manage the hives until the new beek was ready to take them on upon retirement (which was anticipated to be in about 6 months’ time) and would then receive mentoring until they gained the confidence and experience to go it alone.
The seller advised that the honey in the hives would need to be harvested immediately, then disappeared and could not be contacted. So I was called on to assist with the extraction, which was reportedly overdue.
I went and inspected the hives to see what we were dealing with. Interestingly, and unfortunately for the new beek, there was hardly any honey in sight. Certainly, no excess that needed harvesting immediately.
Most of the top boxes were as good as empty. Some were missing frames. Most hives had at least 4 empty foundationless frames. Not just empty of honey. But empty of comb. One hive (Hive 3) had seven empty foundationless frames, while another (Hive 4) had eight empty foundationless frames. These honey supers were essentially entirely empty boxes, filled with nothing but air.
The frames had never had honey in them. They didn’t even have drawn comb.
There were also plenty of frames that were partially drawn foundationless frames, or old, dark drawn (and empty) comb. A few frames were mouldy. These are not signs of a thriving and healthy colony.
None of the hives had queen excluders (or hive mats) so essentially these were double brood hives. One of the first things I did was remove the top boxes as not only was there limited honey up there, but very limited bees as well. Any honey that was found upstairs was brought downstairs to the (now) single brood box.
One hive resulted in having laying workers.
Two of the hives had chalkbrood.
Despite feeding sugar syrup and pollen patties to give them a boost these hives declined at a rate I did not expect. Granted, there were limited resources available at the time, but the feeding should have circumvented that. One of my initial observations was the bees in the colonies were different colours.
In hindsight, this led me to hold a suspicion that the seller had cobbled together random frames from multiple hives to put these ‘colonies’ together and sold them as fully functional hives. Was it possible that these 'multiple hives' were also swarm colonies? This particular seller appeared to be fairly well-known as a swarm collector in their community if the number of tagged posts on social media was any indication.
In addition to the issues above, the hardware left a lot to be desired. The hives had been constructed with recycled timbers. In particular the lids had been made from what looked to be Masonite or chipboard. While they had been painted, which would protect them to some degree, they would need to be monitored for longevity. These materials do not last as long as traditional hiveware material (solid pine).
Also, the size of the boxes were not uniform, some being out by as much as 10mm, with others not being cut straight. This resulted in the top box rocking on the one below, and left large gaps between boxes to be re-propolised by the bees each time they were cracked open for inspections.
I was quite disappointed for this new beek. And frustrated that this seller had managed such a swindle. So I did a little research on the seller and found that they had a fairly active Facebook page with a good number of followers. They are active in the community, have their own Facebook page (and interestingly a separate private page for people who buy bees from them), and is regularly recommended by others whenever someone is seeking local honey or to have a swarm removed.
On the surface they look like a very reputable beekeeper. They have even been in the local news representing beekeepers in their region. During my research I noticed that this seller was also mentoring a school who had a couple of hives. So I took the liberty to contact the school to enquire whether they needed assistance with their hives as I had heard that the seller was no longer available.
The School Hives
The school advised me that they were in the process of purchasing 2 hives from the seller and they would engage my mentoring services given the seller was no longer available to take on the mentoring previously offered.
I was conscious that this could be a negative experience for the school based on The Six Hives experience and recommended that the hives be assessed and valued prior to purchase. The school declined my offer to assess the hives and later advised that they purchased the hives at a discounted rate (nuc prices, not full hive prices).
Let me share with you our first inspection.
The hiveware was of similar quality to The Six Hives and would require monitoring for longevity. Again, each of the hives had double brood boxes. And the top boxes were empty of bees and resources with one missing a frame.
The total number of bees in Hive 1 covered half a side of one frame.
It had a very small single patch of capped brood on a single frame. The remainder of the box was empty of bees.
Hive 2 was not much different although there were twice as many bees - which was still only enough to cover one side of a single frame. There was also chalkbrood present and the smell of dead brood. Thankfully, an AFB matchstick test came back negative. There were also no stores at all to be seen anywhere in the hives. These bees were starving and in rapid decline.
If there were any positives to this inspection, we did sight both queens, and the temperament was very docile, which to me, is a top priority for bees in a school setting.
It was evident that these colonies were not going to survive without immediate intervention. Even merging them together, adding extra bees from a stronger colony, and introducing a feeding regime (and requeening) may not get them through the remainder of autumn and into winter. However, the school was keen to keep each of them alive.
As the school did not have nuc boxes, we reduced them down to a single box. A volunteer parent who was also assisting with the hives would come back later that day to transfer them into some of their personal nuc hardware. We also set up a feeding regime to hopefully kickstart them into action and give them the strength and bee numbers to get them through the winter which was just around the corner.
You can probably guess what happened to these colonies. The bees did not make it. This left the school out of pocket and without any bees.
The Nuc
I was contacted by a local who was enquiring whether my services included removing bees from possum boxes. The short answer was no. This requires a cut-out, and I simply didn’t have time for it. Long story short, this person decided to attempt the cutout on their own and keep the bees themselves.
This colony did not end up surviving. But the newbee was hooked and decided to get some well-bred bees to continue their beekeeping journey. I did not have nucs available at the time but advised the new beek that as long as they purchased from a reputable supplier then they should be fine.
A few months later I received an update from the newbee. They had purchased a nuc from the same seller of The Six Hives and The School Hives and shared with me their experience.
Not only was the nuc delivered during the heat of the day, but when the newbee did their first inspection they found the colony to be queenless. The seller offered them a queen cell to fix it on the proviso that they could come back at a later date and graft from her. This was an interesting concept in my opinion. Assuming the queen cell was viable, and she was able to go out on her mating flights, it was highly unlikely that she would be well mated (or mated at all) as the season had not produced many (if any) drones due to the absence of a nectar flow. No food means no drones. However, the newbee accepted this offer.
Fast forward… the newbee ended up having to purchase a queen from a reputable breeder.
It is important to note that when it comes to buying nucs and queens there are big differences between suppliers, producers, and breeders. And that is another article on its own!
The Lesson
All three of the above scenarios involved new beekeepers. Only one of them was a registered beekeeper at the time of purchase.
Not only did the seller provide weakened and diseased colonies that were unlikely to survive without intervention, they also sold bees with false intent. There was absolutely no way possible that The Six Hives had capped honey ready for harvesting at the time of sale. The seller also acted contrary to WA’s biosecurity legislation by selling bees to unregistered beekeepers.
When purchasing bees, we highly recommend inspecting the colonies prior to taking possession
Unfortunately, there are undesirable sellers out there. If you are not sure what to look for when doing the assessment inspection, find an experienced beekeeper to assist you.
Helen Humphreys Passionate Beekeeper Trainer | Mentor | Producer
Did you miss Buyer Beware | Part 1 or Buyer Beware | Part 2?
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