Mailable Live Animals
pe.usps.com
pe.usps.com
Seems appropriate for the queen.
There's an Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode that covers this question, if you've seen it maybe you will remember the big "H" on the box is for "Hornets" so we all know it's a box full of hornets...
I mean, you could try mailing someone a box of hornets with a big "H" on it and tell them it's a present and the H stands for "Happy Housewarming," but you were talking about legitimate reasons to mail bees, right?
Hives do "swarm" though -- basically, vacating their box en masse -- so it's possible that they were referring to avoiding this behavior, which could maybe be induced by having a hive box sealed up for too long.
This is why if you buy an ant farm for your kids, the ants you get will always die out. :-(
(My son loooves ants.)
Your best bet is http://www.antscanada.com/queen-ants-for-sale/
A Brief History of Children Sent Through the Mail
In the early days of the parcel post, some parents took advantage of the mail in unexpected ways
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-child...
I have a couple bearded dragons thinking of someone just shipping them, taking it to chance they don't get too cold and get sick, scared and alone is just a sad sad sad thought.
I wonder if anyone has done research into whether this is region-specific. Maybe certain processing facilities are older or have problematic management?
I've sent probably 40 parcels successfully and received around 80 in the past 15 years. We avoid sending them in winter, if it's not the height of summer (depending on species) we enclose heat packs. They are always extremely well insulated, ventilated and padded. Poor packaging and mailing is heavily criticised in the pet invertebrates hobby, people are ostracised if they continue to endanger livestock or potentially cause injury to mail workers.
I had one parcel containing dozens of centipedes from China damaged, with centipedes escaping.
I had a parcel from Germany containing tarantulas sat at the post office for days because the postman on foot thought the parcel was too big and the one with the van disagreed. Tarantulas died.
I have some limited experience of mailing reptiles in the UK from around 15-20 years ago but it's heavily frowned upon, probably illegal and reputable dealers will only use pet couriers. I could imagine a small snake could be mailed safely but I'm also horrified at the thought of mailing a bearded dragon or chameleon.
It sounds like between the parcel services and y'all, there's a hell of a lot of irresponsible behavior going on.
I'll skip the boring part of the story, but it thawed, and lived.
Even wrote a book about his adventures: http://www.onemillionfrogs.com/
I'm just waiting for the day when I can order 20lbs of bees on amazon prime... but shipped to my office.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/05/24...
"Small, Harmless, Cold–Blooded Animals"
I think HN has been deteriorating lately because of comments lame jokes. There are a bunch in this story.
> Monday morning myth: attendants must be removed from queen cages
> Many beekeepers believe that you must remove attendant bees from queen shipping cages before you introduce a caged queen into a hive. They believe the queen will more likely be killed by the receiving hive if both the attendants and the queen have a foreign odor.
> This simply is not true. If you install the caged queen properly, the attendants will cause no problem. Before long the queen’s pheromone will circulate throughout the hive. All the bees—as well as the attendants—will then smell the same.
https://honeybeesuite.com/monday-morning-myth-attendants-mus...
Yeah. I just hope that the sun doesn't stay down one day because of the so called jokes in some threads. People waste so much time trying to be funny. (sarcasm--attempted at least)
The funny part, at least for me, was the specific number of bees (8) attending to the queen. It's good to be the King /Queen comes to mind and how did they decide the exact number...
On the other hand, it's probably better they restrict the number of worker bees. What would happen if someone shipped a full nest of bees via airmail, and they somehow got loose on a commercial flight?
Hub to hub nearly all services are reliable, it's the 'last mile' service that has such extreme variability from area to area. That's why when I mail a package to someone else I try to ask them about which services are more reliable /in their area/ (since I attempt to drop off at fixed, staffed, locations, USPS offices and the like).
I've also been impressed with their physical locations. The workers are attentive and helpful (I don't mail letters very often; they have the answers to my many questions). This has been contrary to the stereotype of the post office being similar to the DMV.
The people in my post office are extremely rude and about as "I don't care" or "not my problem" as you can imagine. To be fair, I've also seen some extremely rude customers in the past too. From what I see, they are also very understaffed and probably under paid, but then again they have godly benefits and job security.
With UPS/Fedex, forget it. They have bad branches too, particularly Fedex ground.
The other thing as a smallish shipper you can actually use the insurance. If you make claims with UPS/Fedex, they'll retailiate by raising your negotiated rates.
no you don't, most of our workforce is union protected, they can poop in your package and not lose their jobs
You don't know anger until a post office working starts sliding the security bars closed (at 4:30 pm) cutting the long line in half and telling the people that are on the wrong side that they will have to come back tomorrow.
And what the hell kind of service business closes at 4:30. Making it literally impossible for anyone with a day job to EVER pick up their package (that they should have delivered anyway but didn't because the carrier didn't want to look for the box in his truck and just tiptoed up to your door and stuck a note on it).
Luckily, most post offices stay open longer now. But I still see nothing but long lines and poor service when I have to go.
By comparison, UPS and Fedex are often the source of unpleasant surprises for me as a recipient of packages from various online retailers. I love the USPS and it saddens me to see the vitriol directed towards it.