At 04:14 PM 5/22/98 -0400, you wrote:
 
>delivered to Richfield Wisconsin all were dead on arriveal. i called York bee
 
Sorry to read that, what a bummer, all this good advice and still not
prize... BTW you are getting bees from one of the oldest and best suppliers
in the South so I would rule out anything wrong on that end.
 
I assume that the PO no longer will allow the bees to be insured or
guarantee live delivery. If so you are out of luck unless you can find an
alternative shipper.
 
I had a problem once like this, not that the bees were dead but they were
being held up in the PO one extra day because the Agricultural Department
would not inspect them until then. We were getting one day shipments of
queens out of Northern California only to have them help up a day was just
too much for me to bare. I had a long sit down heart to heart talk with the
Post Master pointing out to him his own responsibilities and how the postal
service broke their buns to make everything happen only to have some minor
local bureaucrat who refused to change his schedule to accommodate the bees
coming in from the north which were one hour later then his normal
agricultural postal inspection routine which all was a crock of bad honey.
Anyway after that I never had another shipment held up and in fact bees
shipped from within California to California address were never again
inspected as they had been inspected at the point of shipment anyway and in
fact there is or was at the time nothing to inspect but 10 bees and a queen
in a cage.
 
All this is not going to help you and I just wrote it because I am waiting
for my dinner to be served but if there is a lesson in it at all it is to
take your complaints to the highest authority in the Post Office and work
down the chain. Many times the postmaster will be as interested in finding
out who the heck is causing the loss or damage so he can demonstrate his
own authority over others that is if he is not working in an area that has
recently experienced a shooting by a postal worker over work rules.
 
Good Luck and I would look for another beekeeper close enough to your area
that you could go in on getting your bees shipped like so many do via a
common carrier or poor beekeeper who like to drive a load of package bees
half way across the country. There still are a few of them left. Look to
your closest Dadant & Son's store they usually have deals going on to get
package bees to their customers.
 
Well I hear the call so I am ending it all right here and now.
 
ttul, the OLd Drone
Los Banos, California