> I doubt that there's much chance of bees in northern 
> Queensland showing up in package exports at this time.  

I don't see the scenario as all that unlikely.
Consider the following factors, both individually, 
and in combination.  Then, place your bets, and 
remember that you are betting for all of us.  

1) One or more swarms moved ashore unnoticed from 
shipping between the ports of Asia and the Australian 
port of Carins, where 4 swarms were initially found,
and additional hives continue to be found, 17 so far,
despite the efforts to find and kill off the hives:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070615091205.htm

2) The same report also admits that Asian bees had 
been found at Australian ports at least half a dozen 
times in the last decade.  Note that this was merely 
the number of swarms that were FOUND.  Any reasonable
analysis must conclude that some number of swarms
will go undetected in the future.

3) Recall that Small Hive Beetles, a large and obvious
pest of bees went unnoticed in Australian hives until
2002, when they had spread from Richmond NSW, to Sydney, 
Brisbane, Stroud, and Cowra in NSW and to Beerwah in 
Queensland, a total distance of over 1000 km (621 miles).
Not a confidence inspiring example of vigilance.

4) While there is a much higher level of inspections of 
incoming shipping at Australian ports than there is in 
the USA, neither the US or Australia has any sort of 
internal biosecurity inspections for inter-state 
shipments from Carins to the areas where bees are raised.

So, without an unprecedented level of quarantine to
isolate the "Asian Bee Area", it is merely a matter of
time before the undesirable bee spreads.

Apis cerana itself is not really the problem - it 
is the pests of Asian bees, such as "Tropilaelaps clareae".
We don't need another hard-to-kill mite.

> But, the record of success of quarantines over the 
> long run has not been good.

Yes, it is important to note that no quarantine has
ever worked, mostly because self-interested parties
chose to violate the quarantines for personal profit
at the expense of all their peers.

> I've seen claims that the monitoring has to be at  
> point of origin (not sure about this one, but if 
> its true, it does tend to make  things more difficult). 

This is the US Trade Representative's view.
They tend to focus their attention on high 
dollar-value items, and ignore lower-dollar ones, 
biosecurity concerns and ripple effects be damned.  

The biggest problem here is that the person who is
charged with inspecting the goods to be shipped
is the person who makes money if the goods ship,
yet loses money if the goods do not ship.

The lack of adequate biosecurity that includes 
inspections of arriving ships and imported goods 
is the sole cause of every invasive exotic pest 
and pathogen of bees we have in the USA, including 
those that are behind CCD.  Australia's experience
with Apis ceranae is a textbook example of how 
"free trade" allows companies to internalize their
profits and externalize their costs on countries.

The UK has been inspecting each and every individual
queen shipped, and they even remove all attendants
and replace them with local bees, sending the imported
attendants off for lab analysis.  
http://bee-quick.com/reprints/apis_bc.pdf

Amazingly, no one objects to the UK's extra level of 
biosecurity, but the USA still quivers in fear that 
Australia might "retaliate".  (Anything short of yet 
another "Crocodile Dundee" movie, would not even be
noticed, but another movie would be a terrible, 
unthinkable act.)

> at least one of the National Bee Associations called APHIS.

Which one?  The one that did and said nothing at all back
in 2002, or the one that tried to "just say no to imports",
proving that they had no grasp of how trade treaties work,
and how one can't "just say no"?  Incidentally, the president
of that organization was the first to actually import bees,
before the ink was even dry on the Risk Assessments, which 
may explain the lame and ineffective opposition and the lack 
of support for port-of-entry sampling, inspection, and controls.

> Technologically, it should be possible to screen  
> at port of entry, return or destroy if any fail to PASS.

Not just possible, but the only prudent approach
a rational nation would take towards imports of
live animals.  In fact, all OTHER live animals
imported are at least tested on a "sampling" 
basis at ports of entry, and these controls are 
considered "minimal".  Somehow, bees are still
stuck in the "plants" section of APHIS, despite
the multiple failures of APHIS to do anything
but count the number of times they have failed.

With a port-of-entry inspection scheme, 
we would not need to worry about imposing "bans",
as we could operate independently of the need
to "trust" the shipper.

I've only been making this point since 2002.

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