"What's in That Package? An Evaluation of Quality of Package Honey Bee
(Hymenoptera: Apidae) Shipments in the United States", by James P.
Strange, et al, in "Journal of Economic Entomology"

Excerpts

> Of the six lines of bees for which we received packages, line 3 had no queen mortality in the first 6 wk, the lowest MPB (mite per bee) scores, no detected Nosema, and the lowest percentage of drones. Line 4 had low drone levels, intermediate MPB levels, and no Nosema; yet, lines 5 and 6 also from producer D had intermediate MPB ratios and low drone numbers, but 50% of those packages had detectable Nosema infections. Lines 1 and 2 had high MPB ratios, high drone numbers and 25% of the packages in each line had Nosema infections.

 > The high variances associated with both MPB ratios and the
proportion of drones among producers is likely indicative of the
variation in production practices of the package bee industry.
Typically package bees are shaken off of frames and pass through a
queen excluder that restricts the movement of queens and drone honey
bees, which are too large to pass through the openings (Laidlaw 1992).
Producers who use a queen excluder should have few drones in packages,
whereas those who forego the queen excluder will likely have variable
amounts of drones from package to package, reßecting the variation in
drone levels from the source colonies.

> Packages shipped from producer D were delayed in the mail and arrived dead in Ithaca, NY. Producer D was notified and immediately shipped a new set of packages which were apparently lost by the U.S. Postal Service. A third shipment by that producer arrived in Ithaca, NY, 2 wk later in good health, and it was included in the study. The producer paid the cost of the latter two shipments and replaced the bees at no extra cost. Two other producers (producers E and F) took our orders for packages, but they never shipped the packages either due to bee shortages or misplaced orders. We were not notified by these producers that shipments would not be forthcoming and only learned of it after calling them when the expected shipments did not arrive.

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