UPS and USPS

[mountainvalleybee]

Hi all, just was wondering if people have been having trouble with Shipments of Bees and Queens with either Carrier at either the Shipping end or the Receiving end of their orders.

[BjornBee]

My closest UPS shipping point, one of those UPS independently owned stores, will not ship bees at all. He outright refuses to take them even though I had shown him a UPS carton from a delivery that UPS sent to me. The next nearest UPS point is too far for me to drive every-time I need to ship a queen, etc. (my shipping and handling fee would need to be about 25 dollars to cover the time, gas, etc....and you know how cheap beekeepers can be.. )

So I send everything USPS. The clerk I usually deal with, her father had bees and she enjoyed them as a kid. They place them in a potato type sack for sending them out. I had, in three years, one returned package due to a bomb scare and a bunch of cancelled flights last year, and one queen dead on arrival in another shipment. The USPS is about a quarter mile from my house.

I send a lot of small orders out. Between one and ten. So the flat rate priority envelope, (4.60) with delivery confirmation (.65) is the best way to go.

[nursebee]

Darn UPS disturbed me the other morning. I was planning on getting some work done but they delivered my overnight shipment of queens about 0930 hours. Disrupted my whole plans for the day...

[jjgbee]

My usps is so screwed up in my area, I never new when or where the queens would come in. Once they were to be at the local PO in the morning. They called late in the evening and told me that they were at a PO 30 miles away and the transport had left for deliverys on the next day. That would mean that my bees would arrive on day 3. That is when I went to UPS. Yes it costs more. I had my queens shipped standard frt, but will call at the local UPS center. With assurance of exact delivery time, I can make 50 divides the day befor Queen arrival with peace of mind that my queens will be at the UPS depot at 8 am the next morning.

[mountainvalleybee]

On one occasion I shipped Queens through USPS Priority Mail and they were held over two days at the local Distribution Center before finally leaving, and with UPS I have shipped Nucs in solidly designed and screened boxes and also Packages, the Screens were punctured and the Nucs and Packages were placed in Cardboard Boxes and completely taped up at some point during shipment. In one case the Nucs and the Packages arrived OK at their Destination, the others I am not sure about as yet but it does not look to good at this point. I have been using both Carriers for years and have not run into this problem before.

[sqkcrk]

I have had mostly good experiences w/ both USPS and UPS. While in SC I have UPS hold my queens for me to pick up. At home, in NY, they deliver right to my door. The Post Office is real good about calling me to come get them, though I have received them at the box too.

[sellis]

i had a bad experince with them first they put the bees in a cardboard box and didnt mark them as bees so the guy who delivered them threw them around like they were regular freight and then they had a hole punched in one of the nuc boxes and bees were everywhere in the box , fortunatley the guy who i got my nucs from was just as upset as i was , we both are working from his end and mine to solve this problem .scott