All
 
My experience is that a lot of environmental factors, often beyond anyone's 
 control enter into the quality of queens from any supplier in any year.
 
Besides the obvious issues of how well the bees are managed and  whether 
pests like mites are controlled, there are the variables of bad  weather, poor 
nutrition, and less obvious problems like Nosema.  Many of  the packages we 
received last year had very high levels of nosema, and we had an  unusually 
high percent of queen failures and replacements.
 
Shipping can also be hard on queens.  I've seen shippers put queen  cages 
in plastic bags to keep them from 'getting' loose, or dropping them into  an 
unheated truck, or onto a radiator 'to help the bees keep warm'.
 
You the customer can do something about this last variable.  Buy  a 
temperature data logger - it can be as cheap as a max/min recorder from  Walmart or 
Radio Shack, or as sophisticated as a HOBO or comparable, continuous  
temperature data logger.  SEND it to your queen provider, ask that it  be 
included in the shipment  of the queen(s) to you.  When you get the  queen(s), 
check to see if the temp ever got very cold or very hot.  If so,  contact the 
shipper, ask for them to pay for a replacement; and let the queen  supplier 
know.
 
Also, have your queen producer label the package - stating - Caution,  
Temperature Sensitive Shipment, Data Logger Included.  That can do wonders  for 
handling.
 
Jerry

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