Terms & Conditions

Our Terms and Conditions apply to all transactions on this site. Please make sure you have read them carefully. They do not affect your statutory rights. By placing an order through this site, by email or telephone you acknowledge that you have read and accept these terms and conditions.

Products
Nucleus Colonies (Nucs) and Full Working Hives are for collection only. Upon physical transfer to you or your agent, our responsibility for the ongoing wellbeing of the colony ceases. At this point you as the purchaser assume all responsibility for your purchase.

Beekeeping Equipment & Sundries. We supply selected items of beekeeping equipment and sundries that are new and unused. We offer no warranty as to their fitness for purpose other than those described on this website. Consignments of Beekeeping Equipment & Sundries are shipped without insurance, therefore no claims for loss or damage will be accepted by us. We advise you to take out third party insurance to cover any loss or damage in transit.

Descriptions, Images and illustrations

Descriptions, Pictures or illustrations used on this website are advisory and for illustration only and may not be representative of goods supplied to fulfill orders.

Shipping of live insects (Queens)

Queen Bees are shipped by Recorded Delivery. Our responsibility for the well being of your purchase ceases upon the consignment being passed to the carrier. We are not responsible for poor or non performance of Royal Mail Special Delivery Services or any other carrier we might use. Consignments of Queen Bees are shipped without insurance, therefore no claims for loss or damage will be accepted by us. As we are shipping live insects we make no guarantees of safe arrival. We advise you to take out third party insurance to cover any loss or damage in transit.

Order Acceptance
All orders for colonies of bees or queens are accepted subject to availability and supply is not guaranteed. Our acceptance of an order does not constitute a contract to supply and is subject to Force majeure. By placing an order for colonies of bees or queens you accept delays to supply can occur due to events beyond our control. We do not accept any third party consequential loss due to delay in supply. Any cancelled orders for bees or queens due to delay in supply will be subject to our Order Cancellation Policy.

Waiting Lists

We will on occasion offer Nucleus Colonies, Full Hives or Queens via a waiting list if availability is becoming limited. By placing your order to go on a waiting list you accept that any deposit or pre-payment made is non-refundable. No guarantee of supply is made to those on a waiting list.

Order process
During the order process you will have an opportunity to check and correct any input errors in your order up until you click the "Pay Now" button. After you submit payment you will receive email confirmation of your order.  Please note that this email is an acknowledgement, not acceptance of your order. We may decline all or part of your order for any reason, in which case we will refund your payment and email you to tell you so. No reason will be given.

During the order process you will be asked to supply a phone number and email address. These contact points must be up to date and valid so that we can contact you regarding your order should we need to.

Prices and payment
All prices and charges quoted on this site are in UK Pounds Sterling. They include any VAT payable, other than where stated.

The total cost of your order will be the price of the products you order plus any applicable delivery charge and any VAT due. All of these charges will be set out clearly in your Shopping Basket before you submit your order.

Prices and products are subject to change at any time and without notice. All deposits paid are non-refundable, unless we are unable to supply your order in the current beekeeping season. That is 1st July for overwintered stocks or 30th September for spring (New Season) stocks.

For orders that are delayed, deferred or are rolled over to the subsequent year, any balance payments due will be those current on this website at the time the final payment is made. No discounts will be given.

Substitution : We reserve the right to substitute Overwintered Queens, Overwintered Nucleus Colonies or Overwintered Full Colonies with Spring (New Season) stocks should overintered stocks become limited or unavailable. We also reserve the right to substitute VSH Queens with Standard Queens should supplies be limited or unavailable. No cancellations will be accepted or refunds made should we need to make this substitution. We also reserve the right to substitute polystyrene hives boxes with ventilated correx traveling boxes. No discounts will be given should this substitution occure.

All payments are processed securely via PayPal. If you do not have a PayPal Account and do not wish to sign up for one then you will be given the opportunity to pay with a debit or credit card instead (Mastercard/Eurocard, Visa/Delta/Electron,Discover, American Express or Maestro). Payment is deducted when PayPal processes your order. See more information about the PayPal payment process here. You can read Paypal's Privacy Policy here and their Cookies Policy here.

Delivery

Queens : We do not offer immediate despatch, queens are shipped as and when available, and solely at our discretion.

Any delivery schedule offered verbally or by any other means is always approximate and subject to change, nor is it binding in any way. As a courtesy, we may attempt to advise you of any significant delays, we are not obligated to do so. You are responsible for ensuring delivery is possible to your premises at any time into a safe environment not causing stress or damage to the enclosed bees. We are not responsible for any failure on the part of any carrier we use to deliver queen bees. No guarantee is made that we will comply with any special delivery requests you may have given to us. We are under no obligation to give any prior notice of shipping, either verbally, by telephone text or email.

Delivery must be to an address in the United Kingdom (but excluding the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and the Scottish islands). Your order will be delivered either by courier or by post and must be signed for. 

Please make sure you keep any receipt enclosed with your goods.

Additional charges levied by carriers for multiple delivery attempts are the responsibility of the consignee and will not be paid by us.

IMPORTANT: Occasionally delivery times may be affected by factors beyond our control and therefore they cannot be guaranteed.

Delivery Charges: Our delivery charges are kept as low as possible, however we do not necessarily use the least expensive. We want you to receive your order in prime condition.

Nucleus Colony's & Full Hives :

We strongly recommend collection, however upon your written instruction we can ship via Royal Mail / Parcelforce entirely at your risk. We will not accept any liability  for loss, damage or inadequate performance for nucleus colony's or full hive that are shipped to you.

Nucleus colony's or full hives of bees may be supplied in previously used boxes, perfectly suitable and safe for travelling.

Damaged orders
If your Queen order is damaged in transit please ensure this is stated on the documents you sign on delivery. Failure to do so will invalidate any opportunity of obtaining a replacement or refund.

Please contact us within 24 hours of delivery with a detailed description of the damage with accompanying photographs.

We have no obligation to replace or make a refund in respect of queen bees that perish or are damaged in transit and do not accept any responsibility if this should happen.

If reported to us on the day of delivery, as a matter of goodwill, we may consider replacement once, but only if the queen cage is returned to us in the original packaging unopened and the contents are intact. This must be done at your cost by recorded delivery. You will pay the shipping costs of a replacement.

A decision on replacement or refund will be made only after satisfactory inspection, and is completely discretionary.

Equipment orders received damaged. Damage must be recorded with the delivery courier at the time of delivery and to us the same day as delivered  with accompanying notes and photographs.

Equipment Returns.

We accept returns only on the following conditions.

Should you wish to return ordered beekeeping equipment, we will only allow this if you contact us prior to returning items and we have issued you with a returns notice.

Returned Items must be unused and in a completely clean undamaged condition and not be made up if requiring construction. Returned Items must be in the unopened original packaging. Damaged packaging is not acceptable for return and will result in refunds being denied.

We will only refund against items meeting those criteria, deductions will be made for items we consider do not meet these conditions.

You must cover the cost of return shipping and insurance to our address and provide tracking information. If you ship without tracking information and insurance no refunds will be made. The issued returns notice MUST accompany the returned items.

We levy a 20% restocking fee on items accepted for return.

Order Cancellation

Nucs and Hives containing live bees - We do not accept cancellations or make any refunds unless we are unable to supply your order in the current beekeeping season (By September 30th). No Refunds of Deposits paid will be made upon Cancellation.

Queens - Orders must be cancelled by email only with your order ID. We levy a cancellation fee of £15 for each queen cancelled. This amount will be deducted from any payments already received, prior to any refund being made.

If your queen order has already been prepared for shipping or has already shipped, no cancellation will be accepted.
THIS POLICY DOES NOT AFFECT YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

Promotions and Competitions

We may from time to time run promotions and / or competitons via our website, newsletter or any other form of communication. Any prizes offered will be made subject to availability and can be replaced at our discretion. Winners will be notified by email and names published in our newsletter the month following the competition.You agree that any photographs, video or text you provide through your entry in to any competition or promotion can be freely used by us on our website, social media or  any other medium as wee see fit.

By entering any competition, prize draw or promotion you acknowledge having read and agreed these terms and conditions

This website
Sipa Honeybees and its suppliers own the copyright, trademarks and all other intellectual property rights in all material and content on this website, which you may not use, download, copy, publish, transmit or otherwise make available by any other means for personal or commercial use. Any other use or reproduction of the material or content is strictly prohibited.

General
These terms and conditions and all transactions relating to this website are governed by English law and are subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts. We do not accept amendments to these terms and conditions.