This message came to us from Tom and Suki Glenn, of Glenn Apiaires, from Fallbrook, CA. They have been in the queen production business long enough to have earned their stripes. They are the sole producers of the USDA SMT queens as breeder stock. If you rely on queens and packages arriving by any of these methods from the post office, you need to react to this announcement. Thanks to Glenn Apiaries for sending this along.
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Post Office Quits Bees?

Here's another blow to agriculture.

As of August 27, 2001, the Post Office is going to use FedEX to be the
carrier of all air mail. This means no live insects, birds, or reptiles
can be shipped with the post office. It affects First class, Priority, and
Express mail.

The Post Office does not have an alternate carrier lined up. After a hundred years of the bee industry depending on the post office, it seems unfair to drop us like this without warning.

If we make a big enough protest we may be able to make a change in this policy. We should at least let our concerns be known.

It's time to write those letters to our representatives and contact everyone you know who will be affected to do the same.

You can make a direct complaint to the Post Office at www.usps.com and send an email through "contact us" on their website.

Glenn Apiaries

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Kim Flottum
Editor, Bee Culture Magazine