United States Postal Service

mountainvalleybee · May 14, 2009, 02:28:01 AM

Found out Monday the 11th of this Month that the USPS is no longer offering their services for the shipment of any Package Bees, will be checking with various Courier Services about the use of their Services and will let you know on a later post what I find out or if anyone else already knows about any that will ship bees let us know here please

Thanks: Alan Bukley

Bee-Bop · May 14, 2009, 09:46:43 AM

This was posted on the boards several weeks ago.
USPS was stopping shipments due to FED-X stopping air shipments of live
animals, and FED-X air carries the mail.

Bee-Bop

BeeHopper · May 14, 2009, 11:23:55 AM

That leaves UPS to handle it :-\

shaux · May 14, 2009, 12:16:11 PM

Does this have any truth to it? I just called Rossman after reading this because they are having USPS deliver there packages. They have said that they haven't heard anything of this and are still shipping them through the post office.

NasalSponge · May 14, 2009, 01:53:07 PM

FedEx moves most USPS priority mail. We got an email about a week ago saying we will no longer fly packages of bees via USPS due to some poor packaging issues...kinda scary for a handler to pop open a container and be greeted by a bunch of angry bees. We will continue to fly queens and all other live animals. USPS still trucks alot of mail so that may be an option still.

dpence · May 14, 2009, 01:58:24 PM

I just called my Post Office and they indicated there maybe some restrictions for long deliveries, but they would still be shipping live bees.

David

jeepaddict4life · May 14, 2009, 01:58:50 PM

There's a link on the USPS website which has some info about live animal transport under special handling...it doesn't sound as urgent or restrictive as some have stated. I don't know how up to date it is here though. I contacted Rossman by e-mail and am awaiting a response, I'll post as soon as I hear back though.

http://www.usps.com/send/waystosendmail/extraservices/specialhandlingservice.htm

MustbeeNuts · May 14, 2009, 09:38:10 PM

sure it won't be a big deal, they'll just up the shipping so high it won't be worth it to anyone to ship them. conquoer by cost.

Camp9 · May 14, 2009, 11:08:51 PM

I just got two packages today from Long Creek in TN. It had a sticker on it that said no air with a pic of an airplane with the circle and slash through it.

Camp

The Bix · May 15, 2009, 12:51:02 AM

So the USPS is going to take our bee package from Rossman in Georgia, toss them on a truck and drive them to Colorado in what? A week?

SgtMaj · May 15, 2009, 02:58:04 AM

Quote from: BeeHopper on May 14, 2009, 11:23:55 AM
That leaves UPS to handle it :-\

And they like to stick them in nice air-tight plastic bags.

sc-bee · May 15, 2009, 05:24:39 AM

We have trouble getting queens mailed from Rossman and we are in SC. It takes about a week from SC to Ga. Used to take about two days. Last couple of years the shipping time has been terrible. And don't even think about making an insurance claim on dead queens. They just run you around in a circle.

mountainvalleybee · May 16, 2009, 01:37:40 PM

Update on Postal service: Have found out that the USPS is no longer accepting honeybee packages for air shipment(Priority Air), however may still be accepting ground shipments, (special handling ground),also ups is still shipping both ground and air but they seem to not take much care of the packages during shipment. Am looking very hard at a Courier Service which will possibly handle shipment Nationwide although would cost some more but might be offset by next day delivery or at the very least 2nd day.

irekkin · May 16, 2009, 06:24:14 PM

if you have to go with ground service, what is an acceptable time period for the bees to be in transport ?

Beaver Dam · May 16, 2009, 09:26:58 PM

So what is it? Are they are arn't they using usps?

livz2hunt · May 16, 2009, 10:54:37 PM

Mountainvalleybee hello,
where are you getting your information?I work for the Postal Service and have not heard anything about us not offering shipment by air for live bees. I will dig into this and find out for sure. Hopefully, someone has been misquoted and misunderstood about this. Let us not go jumping to conclusions before we have all the facts.
I received a package of bees on April 2 shipped Priority Mail, so we still offered air service at that time.
It's true that Fed-ex flies all of our Priority (2-3) day and Express (over night) mail. But I have not heard a word about them not flying bees. Again I intend to check into this first thing Monday morning.
Parcel service, which is by truck, usually takes from 5-7 days for a shipment across the US. Whether or not that is a good idea i'm not sure since I am new to beekeeping.

jeepaddict4life · May 18, 2009, 10:57:30 PM

Sorry I didn't update here sooner...I heard back from Rossman, and they said that they will be shipping USPS, and that USPS will be working through the weekend and the holiday, so I should get my package sometime early next week!

If anyone here has recently received an order from Rossman, let me know how it went. I'm curious to know, and very eagerly awaiting the arrival of my first package. :-D

Thanks!
-Mike

The Bix · May 24, 2009, 02:32:20 PM

Final post for me on this subject:

Shaux and I heard from Rossman that our bee package was sent this past Monday. We received the girls on Friday morning. I assume they stuck the bees on a truck from Georgia and they arrived in Aurora, Colorado Friday morning. Quite a scene at the P.O. picking them up according to Shaux, but that is another story. The bees seemed to be in very good shape, feeder can was near empty and we installed them. They were bringing pollen in yesterday roughly 24 hours after being installed. So, they are doing well and apparently I was worrying a bit too much. :)

sc-bee · May 24, 2009, 02:42:45 PM

>It takes about a week from SC to Ga.

Wow. a week to Colorado a week to SC---- go figure :?

jeepaddict4life · May 24, 2009, 04:09:10 PM

Quote from: The Bix on May 24, 2009, 02:32:20 PM
Final post for me on this subject:

Shaux and I heard from Rossman that our bee package was sent this past Monday. We received the girls on Friday morning. I assume they stuck the bees on a truck from Georgia and they arrived in Aurora, Colorado Friday morning. Quite a scene at the P.O. picking them up according to Shaux, but that is another story. The bees seemed to be in very good shape, feeder can was near empty and we installed them. They were bringing pollen in yesterday roughly 24 hours after being installed. So, they are doing well and apparently I was worrying a bit too much. :)

I'm glad to hear they arrived in good condition :) Congrats! Mine shipped yesterday, so I should receive them sometime this week then.