My guess is;
These bees are probably out of the California nuts, then out of Texas, finally being shipped to good ole Florida, after the pepper harvest in November he will pull the honey for himself, then sell you the empty hives.
As iddee said, you may be just buying box's, wax, and some wore out bees.
This is not necessarily true, but is the way commercial operators work, check the bee journals, thousands of cheap hives after they have been stripped out !
Good Luck
Bee-Bop