# Noble Apiaries LLC



## Too bee or not to bee

Hello!

Has anyone ever used *Noble Apiaries LLC *out of *Dixon, CA* to receive shipped bees? I am curious about their service and the condition/quality of the bees after shipping.

Thanks,
~2BoNtB


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## Honey-4-All

Go for it guys.......... Beat me to death. Here's your chance.  

Will give you a free package to tb or not toB if you can find anyone who will certify that they haven't received their order in superb shape. We are about on the top of the heap price wise with shipped packages. Its expensive to do it correctly and we charge accordingly. Not saying we don't have any mishaps in shipping but the final success rate after all the reshipments is 100%. We get them their alive.. How people kill them after they get them....... thats up to them. 

Our success rate using UPS overnight air ( all we use) is 98.5% of all the shipments ( 1000's) since 2006. For those willing to let us know about the losses ( and provide pictures of the dead bees) in the other 1.5% of the shipments by the evening the bees arrive we willingly reship at our expense. 



Just came in from grafting our first queens of the year. :thumbsup:

Anyone who doesn't recognize the value of the hard work put in by the Beeinformed project needs to wake up. Attached is a few pictures from our top 24 breeders for 2015 picked with the data from their testing. Every queen we are using this year has a minimal hygienic test of 95% uncapping factor and a 80% total removal factor. ( top 17 breeders are at 90% +)

If the weather holds for mating we are going to have some very sweet queens in the packages this year......... Very sweet!!!!!!!!


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## jean-marc

Lots of pollen in that frame with the bees on it. Nice.

Jean-Marc


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## MTN-Bees

Looking Good!


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## Tim KS

Honey-4-All said:


> Go for it guys.......... Beat me to death. Here's your chance.
> 
> Will give you a free package to tb or not toB if you can find anyone who will certify that they haven't received their order in superb shape. We are about on the top of the heap price wise with shipped packages. Its expensive to do it correctly and we charge accordingly. Not saying we don't have any mishaps in shipping but the final success rate after all the reshipments is 100%. We get them their alive.. How people kill them after they get them....... thats up to them.
> 
> Our success rate using UPS overnight air ( all we use) is 98.5% of all the shipments ( 1000's) since 2006. For those willing to let us know about the losses ( and provide pictures of the dead bees) in the other 1.5% of the shipments by the evening the bees arrive we willingly reship at our expense.
> 
> 
> 
> Just came in from grafting our first queens of the year. :thumbsup:
> 
> Anyone who doesn't recognize the value of the hard work put in by the Beeinformed project needs to wake up. Attached is a few pictures from our top 24 breeders for 2015 picked with the data from their testing. Every queen we are using this year has a minimal hygienic test of 95% uncapping factor and a 80% total removal factor. ( top 17 breeders are at 90% +)
> 
> If the weather holds for mating we are going to have some very sweet queens in the packages this year......... Very sweet!!!!!!!!


I checked out your webpage. Nice! We've ordered a few packages this year to cover some winter loses. We have local beek who orders from CA and combines orders for up to maybe a 100 packages that come by truck. His price this year is $145 for a package. ?? I added you to my bookmarks in case we need bees again sometime. You da man!


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## the doc

Two years ago I ordered 6 packages from noble apiaries/honey 4 all and they were delivered on time and with an incredibly sturdy and well,protected shipping crate-like arrangement. When I need packages in the future I would not hesitate to order again. And no I am not a paid endorser


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## dynemd

I couldn't help but notice $96 shipping to Santa Barbara for a package which comes to $226 total for 1 package...


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## Snowfighter

I have ordered packages from noble. Last year and this year. Great service and great bees. No losses this winter and all are healthy and mite free.


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## shinbone

One year I had the opportunity to look at many nucs from Noble Apiaries. They were all very good and many were absolutely stuffed full to the seams with bees. These guys are very good at what they do.


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## Honey-4-All

Snowfighter said:


> I have ordered packages from noble. Last year and this year. Great service and great bees. No losses this winter( :thumbsup: edit by H4all) and all are healthy and* mite free*.


As many know the whole breeding to "get rid of the mites" has been an arduous task which has not been even close to being 100% successful. Although we and many other breeders are working on it very hard this battle has been going on way to long and continues to be thee major issue in beekeeping so to say we are even close to getting "mite free" bees in our bees would be a blatant misstatement on our part if we were to claim so. 

That being the case I would recommend that you double and triple check those mite counts and act accordingly especially if you buy bees from us. Not that ours are any worse than others. Just a caution to be prudent considering the way things are in 99% of the bees out there today. 

We are pleased as punch when we hear success stories like you mention Snowfighter. There are many out there but please watch your bees if you have not been doing so already. Do not assume everything is going as smoothly as they look outwardly. A vigilant program of monitoring and acting accordingly is very helpful in maintaining hives for a long duration.

BTW: Thanks for your orders SF.


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## Snowfighter

Honey4all.
I did a mite test last fall and they were almost nil. Getting ready to test again. Not opposed to treating, I just haven't had to yet.
I'm lucky to live close enough to pick them up.


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## Too bee or not to bee

Awesome pics . thanks for the info.


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## Honey-4-All

Snowfighter said:


> Honey4all.
> I did a mite test last fall and they were almost nil. Getting ready to test again. Not opposed to treating, I just haven't had to yet.
> I'm lucky to live close enough to pick them up.


My recommendation is that before you get any new bees close to the "old" ones is that you check them and check them well. If you are not sure how to do so give me a call and I will go through a few options. Since this is the big graft week of the year ( maybe 6 thousand cells if the weather cooperates ) we are pretty busy.. If you call and get the vm please leave a message and a good time to return your call and I will try to slip one in back at you ASAP.


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## Honey-4-All

Thought I'd share another really cool picture. Yesterday when we were grafting one of the frames that we used was one that had been pushed through the liquid nitrogen hygienic test on the 16th of February. The bees had cleaned out 100% of the frozen brood by the 17th. When we pulled the frame out for yesterdays grafting the queen had already relaid the whole "hole" with some of the brood already capped. The angle does not do real justice to what was evident by changing the angle of the frame to ones vision when holding it in person. Should have taken more pics.. Definitely a symmetrical laying queen.



On a side note regarding hygienic testing: 

When we ran the 100 plus samples this year a live bee sample was also taken and placed on liquid nitrogen and sent for analysis on every one we ran. There is some speculation that a certain protein may be embedded in higher concentrations in the hygienic worker bees antennas than in the non hygienic ones. I have not heard back on the results but the field visual samples are being compared to these protein levels to see if there is any correlation. This is something I had not heard about before. If true it might make testing a broader range of bees available to the test samples when breeders are gathering data to help choose queens.


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## KQ6AR

They are Good guys, with good bees. I had one of their queens last three seasons before I lost her in a swarm.


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## Hawkster

I have purchased a few queens and they have been strong producers, if i need a queen fast this is where i look first


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## JRG13

Phil's a great guy. I still have one of his queens from 3 years ago, still productive as ever. He's also produced me some great queens this year, just as a favor to me, I did supply the breeder though. I'll post some pics later.


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## shinbone

(resurrecting an old thread)

I just wanted to add to this thread that last year (2016) me and friends ordered 8 packages from Noble Apiaries. All the packages arrived with practically no dead bees in them, and each package grew into a strong hive that produced a surplus of honey, i.e. enough honey to survive the winter and some for harvest. It is somewhat unusual for a new package to produce a surplus of honey in my area, and that all 8 of the Noble Apiaries packages did so shows just how good the packages were.


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