On Thu, 19 Jul 2001, Aaron Morris wrote: > Not so. UPS carries bees and in fact I much prefer their service to > US Postal Service. Whenever I can I'm glad to pay the little extra > for UPS overnight. As a point of contrast... I live in Pittsburgh. I and many of my friends avoid having anything shipped via UPS whenever possible, because UPS packages routinely arrive torn, dented, abraded, covered with inks or dyes, and occasionally even crushed. And although I haven't yet had to do it, several of my friends have had to return items because UPS damaged them in transit. In contrast, in my experience and my friends' experience, in this geographic area, neither the USPS nor Fedex routinely damages packages in this manner. My experiences with UPS would make me extremely reluctant to have bees shipped to me via UPS. Ok, perhaps having a package that buzzes angrily and/or stings if mishandled might cause some UPS workers to use gentler handling techniques. But if they can't even get regular packages to me without trying to destroy them along the way, why would I expect (or even hope) that they'd make any effort to care for the bees (e.g., not let them bake in the truck on hot days) in transit? Plus, if UPS becomes the only easily-accessible shipping company willing to ship live cargo, they will (naturally) take advantage of that monopoly by charging more. I don't think the USPS outsourcing its air mail deliveries is bad. I do think, however, that reducing the options for shipping live cargo is bad. If Fedex wants the USPS' air mail business, then they should have to carry all of the same types of cargo as the USPS. -- James Ralston Pittsburgh, PA, USA