Kelley Walter Bee Hive Factory

Don't buy from Kelly's Bees


"I was to receive my bees from Kelly Bees on 5/5/18 which was a Saturday. I checked with the post office and the package was not there. It did come on Monday and they called me in the AM to pick them up. When I arrived I was shocked to see that 3/4 of them were dead. I notified Kelly right away and Amy Mann was my contact. She said to email her pictures and took my info down. I didn't here from her so I called on Wednesday. She informed me that the bee yard manager haaas not got back with her yet and she would contact me as soon as she did. On Friday, Amy emailed me and said that dead bees were common in shipping and even though I had bee insurance, they would not do ANYTHING to make up for the loss. I wanted to talk to the bee manager but never had a call.

Now, this is not my first rodeo and I have been bee keeping for some time. I've had packages of bees mailed to me and successfully introduced them to hives. In this instance, I believe there are multiple mistakes Kelly made.
1. They shipped the bees too late in the week and they bees had to spend two extra days being shipped
2. The holes in the syrup can weren't adequately punctured. There was still 3/4 full can when it arrived. I believed the bees starved on the trip.

Though I lost the majority of bees, the queen and a couple nurse bees made it. Upon inspection, I noticed that the queen was marked white, which was the color for queens two years ago. The color for this year is red. When I brought this to Amy's attention, she said "oh we mark all our queens white for color blind people"

I will tell all my bee keeping friends to stay away from Kelly. For more info please email me jamessb37 at gmail.com"

After a total of 10 calls, lots of hold time, and about 2 months, I finally got all of my order shipped out to me. Everyone on the phone is very nice and clearly wants to help but whomever runs their online business and operations needs to be fired. It really couldn't get much worse.

I will not order from them again and would advise anyone else go with another supplier like Mann Lake or Dedant instead. The products will be the same and you wont have to deal with Kelley's poorly run eComm business.

I'd give Walter T. Kelley 5 stars but this is the only bee company I've dealt with so I don't know if it's as good as it gets.

However, I'm a fan. Back in the winter I got a bee in my bonnet (oh, yes I did!) to become a bee keeper. I did some research and from every source I talked to or googled I got directed to Walter T. Kelley as the best.

My first order was for equipment. I got a nice, cheap helmet and veil and a smoker. Those have been sitting in my trunk but finally yesterday I got the call: three pounds of Italian honey bees were at the post office waiting for me. I went to where I had put my hive (thanks!) and installed them. It was as easy as the lady on the phone said. Only three stings! The bees seemed healthy and active and ready to gather nectar and honey.

Both shipments came on time and in good order. The phone folks were very nice and informative.

The only drawback - and won't attribute this to Kelley 100% - is the cost of getting into bee keeping. After pricing the traditional route of buying the boxes that you think of when you think of bee keeping I had a mini-stroke. When all was said and done I would be shelling out easily $500 but most likely heading to $1,000.

That wasn't going to happen. I decided to use a more rudimentarly method - Kenyan Top Bar Hive. I built it myself.

I guess what I'm getting at is that with the problems we're having with a lack of bees I wish Kelley would take the lead in somehow lowering the price to make bee keeping more accessible or have products that catered to Top Bar Hive guys like I've decided to become.

So this place will not appeal to 99% of Yelpers but a good business is a good business, right?

Walter Kelly is the place to get your beekeeping supplies if your not having any luck on the local level. Like anything you order from the net you pay for any discount with shipping costs. This can really get up there if you want to ship a bunch of equipment that weighs 100's of pounds. Luckily in LA we have some choices for equipment. However, I do get my smaller specialty items and most recently bee medication from these guys. Yes bees can get sick and diseases too. The price is right, they ship it immediately and should you have any problems at all you can call and they will answer all of your questions. Not a bad deal at all.

They have anything you need to update ot start a hive from scratch. I think you can only get bees locally but you can still order queens through the mail. Bee's in the mail, ahhh!

READ ENTIRE REVIEW: as a new beekeeper, I thought buying my supplies from a company that was "established" would be the way to go. wrong! I placed a substantial order (over $400, including an entire full hive) and was told it would ship within 2 days. a week later I called and was told it had NOT shipped because one $10 item was on backorder! who holds up an entire order for one small backordered item?! I told them (Amy) not to hold the order and to cancel the b/o item.

I called again a week later and was told it had NOT shipped because, you guessed it, one item was on backorder. I told them, AGAIN, not to hold the order up and was told it would ship next day. this was 2 weeks after placing order. I called again 2 days later to get a tracking#, and spoke with a "supervisor", Mary Glenn. she said the order had NOT shipped because the order was not complete. I'M NOT KIDDING! Mary Glenn "promised me" she would personally see that this order shipped that day, and I should have it in 2 days. she promised to email me the tracking# the next day.
2 days later, I had not received my order. I called Mary Glenn and she told me the order had NOT shipped, guess why? you got it, they were waiting for one item. she told me she would go to shipping department and personally make sure it shipped that day. it did not ship that day.

I then had to drive 2 hours to a bee supply company to buy a partial hive, because my bees were due to arrive that weekend. an additional $120 I had to spend because of Kelley's horrible service.

4 WEEKS after I placed the order, and 3 promises that it would "ship that day", I finally received the order. a section of the hive had been damaged in shipping (the bottom board, or base, which the entire hive sits on), and one major component they said they had shipped was missing. I contacted Mary Glenn immediately and she said Jessica (customer service?) would get back to me that day to address the problems. after sending daily emails for 6 DAYS, they never even responded. I finally had to contact my credit card company to dispute the charges.

when the hive and accessories finally did arrive, the quality was really very poor. the hives were STAPLED together (and not glued prior to that), rather than nailed or screwed, like good quality hives are constructed. they were flimsy and the corners fit poorly. I can tell these hives are not built to last more than a couple years, a considerable investment for such poor product.

I know for certain that I would never order from this company again. their product is poor quality and their customer service is non-existent. I have ordered online on a regular basis (weekly) for over 10 years, and this was possibly the worst experience to date. AVOID Walter Kelley Beekeeping.

A friend and I each ordered a nuc from them and drove 4 hours to get it. We drove all the way home (in a temperature controlled car) and opened them to find nearly all of the bees dead in both nucs. It took a week or so before they decided that they had left them out in the sun too long before we had picked them up and had killed them. So we had to drive all the way back to get more bees. I asked if they could do anything financially about it since we had to drive so far again and she said "We're giving you free bees!" like they were going above and beyond what they should have to do. I told her I'd hope so since they sold us dead bees. Then she finally decided that we could have 5% off whatever else we bought that day. NOT good customer service and I won't be buying bees from them again.

I have only purchased something from them once but they were very professional. I ordered the item and it came immediately. I had some questions about the item order right after I ordered it on line. I emailed my questions and they were answered politely the same day. It seems to be a very well run company.

On a different note I wanted to say the item I ordered was their ventilated bee suit. I used it the first time yesterday and it was amazing. It was very cool to wear and I did not get a single sting. That is very unusual for me since I keep bees in an africanized mixing area and my colonies are very hot to deal with. Although all ventilated bee suits are much more expensive than the traditional suit, this one at least, is worth every penny.

They DO NOT guarantee the bee packages, just the queen! I installed a 3 lb. package of bees from Kelley on Saturday. After 3 DAYS, on Tuesday, I checked them to make sure the queen was released and found them dead. Everything in the hive came from Kelley, even the sugar water they were being fed. When I contacted them about it they said it could not be their fault so there was nothing they could do. Once I explained to them thet everything in the hive was from them and pointed out that the established hive I bought from them 2 years before had a laying worker they offered to TRY to get me a package at a discounted rate. Why should we pay for them twice? Their response was they have to pay for the bees. When we pointed out that they have hundreds of people over the next month and a half picking up bees at $100 a pop they said that they didn't make any money off their bees...

Avoid Kelley Bee. Go somewhere else.

Their customer service is awful. I tried calling them and they didn't answer so I left a voicemail telling them my question and phone number and asked them to call me back, they never did. A few days later I called again and they answered and were short with me. Now I have bees that were supposed to come yesterday and they still haven't even sent me an email saying they're shipped! I can't be here waiting for my bees Monday so I don't know what I'm going to do. First time costumer. And last time costumer.

Absolutely the WORST experience I have ever had with a business! They took my money the moment I placed my order which was nearly two months ago. After a couple of weeks I emailed them asking about the hive kits I paid for. I received an untimely reply stating they were a couple of weeks behind and "to stay on them". REALLY??!!! I needed to "stay on them" and remind them to fill my order!!! My order came to well over $800.00 dollars. I received a shipment yesterday and half the items were missing. No covers, bottom boards, stands, missing shallows and frames....the list goes on. I'm a newbie so even trying to figure out exactly what was missing was a nightmare. My bees are supposed to ship in just over a week and I don't have a complete hive kit. I doubt my bees will ship on time, if at all and from what I'm reading in other reviews I'll be lucky to get a queen. Lesson learned! NEVER AGAIN!! Wasted a lot of money and time.