September 23rd 2020
This page provides our status during these challenging time, including their impact on our ability to serve our valued readers, customers and members. We believe in full transparency as our way of doing business and will continue to update this page as the situation evolves.
Current Status
- The majority of orders are leaving the warehouse within 2-4 business days of being placed.
- We have not increased prices, despite considerable pressure on supply chains and related processes.
- We have supply issues on a small number of products, due to lockdown-related factors. See below for product-specific notes.
- All Colony Member services and events continue as usual.
Our Ongoing Commitment.
- We will update availability of individual products at the PerfectBee Store as soon as we learn of any issues.
- In the unlikely event that a customer places an order for a product that we subsequently discover has a supply issue*, we will contact the customer and offer a full refund.
* As our general practice, we do not accept orders for products known to be out of stock. In rare cases, we learn of a supply issue after an order has been placed. Our commitment above means that customers always have the option for a full refund.
Product-Specific Notes
- Extractors
- 4-frame extractors are in high demand. We are receiving new stock regularly but stock availability may not last too long..
- 12-frame motorized extractors are on backorder and not expected to be available till October
- We have received a large shipment of protective clothing. Most sizes are now back in stock, with the remainder due soon.
- BetterComb (both deep and medium frames) are now in stock, though selling quickly. Some BetterComb-related accessories have a temporary backlog situation – see product pages for details.
- We have some temporary supply issues with certain hive kits. This is often due to an individual component of a kit being unavailable, thus rendering the kit itself technically out of stock. However, the main elements of most kits are generally available separately from our store.
Our Status, Expanded
We know that trust is an essential part of any purchase, particularly during these worrying times. This remains our most valued asset – the trust we have earned from our customers since we formed in 2015. It is is a focal part of how we run PerfectBee and nothing about this crisis will affect this.
Since our formation about 5 years ago we have been and remain an entirely online/virtual organization, with all our staff working “remotely” across the United States, as our norm. Of course, we don’t claim to have had any foresight for the current situation so know that we are very fortunate in this context.
This means that our regular services (this web site, our member forum, webinars, Colony Cluster, etc) are remain unaffected, at least in the foreseeable future.
We also have the PerfectBee Store which, of course, relies on a strong and reliable supply chain. Our primary distributor is based here in the US and, quite frankly, is doing an extraordinary job of keeping shipments on track, under very trying circumstances. They do this while respecting local and regional requirements and adjusting their physical processes to protect the health of their employees.
We are immensely appreciative and thankful for their work at this difficult time. We have an extremely close relationship with our distributors and will report here if/when that situation changes.
While there has been no significant impact to date, this may change at any time. We commit to maintaining this page until this situation is past us.
In Summary
We know we are very fortunate, in that much of what we do is online and largely unaffected. We also recognize that this is not the case for many others and we are truly sorry for all who are impacted by this terrible situation. We hope that all of you are taking the appropriate steps to stay safe and wish every one of you the very best at this incredibly challenging time.
We are truly honored to serve you.
For up-to-date information, we refer you to the CDC web site.
Thank you.
Mark Williams, PerfectBee Founder