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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Alan Pagliere <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 20 Jul 2001 09:48:55 -0400
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The conventional wisdom that UPS will not ship bees is not true. I just,
this past April, ordered bees from Koehnen in California. UPS Second Day
Air. They arrived just fine. In fact with far, far, far fewer of the
usual dead bees at the bottom of the box.

I did get a hold of the local UPS outlet to find out when the UPS man
would arrive at my house so I could bring the bees in right away.
Getting the phone number there was next to impossible. I believe the
proper thing to do is to get the UPS tracking number for your package,
then call the main UPS 800 number. They will not give you the number of
your local UPS folks for love or money. However, I believe they will
give your number to your local folks who will then call you to arrange
things.

I found the main UPS people to be the polar opposite of forthcoming and
helpful. I had to do all the work in the conversation (I hate that in a
service representative!), asking for information and volunteering
answers myself. No one volunteered any help or information. I had to
guess about how they do things, how they run their business day to day,
how to find out anything. Asking specific questions until they answered
yes or no. Twenty questions.

However, once I got a hold of the people in the next town at the local
UPS delivery center, it was another story. Extremely  helpful, nice
folks. They called me back to let me know that the delivery truck was on
its way. I got home, waited about 5 minutes and my bees pulled up in a
van.

So, anyway, I apologize for having made a long story even longer, I will
just say that UPS does in fact ship bees. They do. Koehnen uses them
exclusively as far as I know and I have personally had bees shipped to
me that way and so have others I know.


Alan Pagliere
Ann Arbor, Michigan
42 17' N; 83 44' W
[log in to unmask]

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