Ebay

[Edwardking]

This has to be a first - there's a swarm for sale on Ebay. Search 'bee keeping' and it's item 3.

 

[ratcatcher]

nope, I saw a hive and bees there last week

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

someone advertised a swarm there last month I believe - one way to ge a response I suppose

 

[Ben90]

It's against ebay rules to sell livestock...

 

[ratcatcher]

It's against ebay rules to sell livestock...

depends how you word it, whether it gets removed or not

 

[madasafish]

You can sell eggs for hatching from ebay so a what's a few thousand bees but 6 weeks from an egg?

 

[drstitson]

"It's against ebay rules to sell livestock."

a swarm isn't legally livestock.

the seller is perfectly at liberty to sell the rights to collection, only after which do they become livestock.

 

[Macstu]

You can buy stick insects on ebay so why not bees

 

[beehive1234]

Really! I want a couple. Had some as a kid 40 yrs ago. Breed like mad. Scared my cousin Howard senseless when he visited. Ha ha ha happy days...............

 

[alanf]

It's against ebay rules to sell livestock...

"Livestock" is not the term ebay uses. Policy is you cannot sell live animals but there are some exceptions. The exceptions are basically animals to be used as bait or food (e.g. mealworms or crickets for pets, or crabs for human consumption), aquarium or pond fish and hatching eggs of domestic birds.

There's no obvious practical reason why a bag of mealworms is treated differently from a caged honey bee queen. It does vary a little between countries, I'm pretty sure in some areas you cannot sell fish. For reasoning and detail, you'll have to ask ebay. It doesn't appear to be related to what a courier will take or the law, maybe they expect more complaints. The examples above are among those listed on their "policy" page. They have not been willing to discuss specific cases in the past.

You can actually list anything for a while. If they notice, or more likely if someone complains, they remove it. Do it repeatedly and your account is suspended. Whether it's noticed and removed may depend partly on the wording you use. For instance I do know some have regularly sold butterfly hatching kits that include vouchers for butterfly eggs. While I'm pretty sure at least one listing for a bee hive "plus voucher for bees" has been removed in the past.

Add:

This has to be a first - there's a swarm for sale on Ebay. Search 'bee keeping' and it's item 3.

Not any more. Presumably noticed and removed.

 

[Dishmop]

or more likely if someone complains,

Thats about it.......