Justin Knight wrote
 
> My Father is going back to America for a short while and we were
> wondering if he could bring package bees to Hong Kong on the airplane. As
> far as we know there are no restrictions on bringing bees into Hong Kong.
>
> Is it legal?
 
You would have to check with your Hong Kong Authorities to see if it is legal.  I know people in Australia who have sent queen bees to Hong Kong.  However, the Authorites in Hong Kong required a health certificate signed by our Australian Government Officials.  I doubt that this has changed and you may need to have a health certificate signed by the American Authorities.
 
> Would the bees survive?
 
If the packages are prepared professionally, they will survive the trip.  It is not something that you can do if you have no experience.
 
> If anyone has done it before could you please tell us your experience?
 
Firstly, you will need to check which airlines will carry package bees.  Some airlines will not carry package bees because people in the past have not been professional enough in the preparation of the packages and they have leaked bees.  Some airlines have staff that are also not up to speed in handling packages. We have one beekeeper in Australia who flys with the pallets of packages to their last point of transhipping to make sure they are handled correctly.  He relies on the receiver to supervise the unloading at the destination.
 
The airlines require that the packages are double wrapped in a material to stop any bees from getting out.  It is easy to wrap a pallet that contains say 440 packages but if you are sending a few, then it requires a lot of extra work to meet the airline requirements.  I can vouch for this as we have sent small numbers to several destinations.  Because of the work involved, we do not do these small numbers any more.
 
If you are going ship packages back to Hong Kong, please be very careful.  We have a limited number of airlines that will carry our live bees and an accident will make that airline nervous about carrying live bees.  We do not want any more airlines withdrawing their services.
 
Have you considered the alternatives to bringing in packages?  I assume you already have some hives as you would need equipment to put the packages into.  Why not split them, and bring in some queen bees?  Your father could easily obtain some queens whilst in America and they would be easy to ship back to Hong Kong.  You may need a health certificate.  Just make sure they put the queens in the pressurised cargo holds and not in the unpressurised cargo holds.  Bees are not allowed to be carried as personal luggage unless you have made prior arrangements with the airlines.
 
Trevor Weatherhead
AUSTRALIA