shipping queens 7 DOA

If anyone has ideas on what happened let me know;

-shipped 13 queens priority overnight, they did not arrive the next day so Canada Post is giving a refund for that
- they got there a day late so they were in transit for about 2 days
- temps outside are about 32 or more; very hot
- don't know where the package stayed the night ( maybe in an over heated vehicle ?)
- shipped in a jz/bz battery box and cages
- each cage had 3 or 4 attendants, and then some loose bees in the battery box
- MY CUSTOMER SAYS 7 QUEENS WERE DEAD !
I can think of only two things; this was the first time I shipped with loose attendant bees, maybe they stung the queen(s) ? Or, the bees were left in a hot vehicle unattended and thats why they never made the guaranteed shipment time.

So either too much of a heat wave or loose attendants are a bad idea ? Or something else ?

My Celsius instincts aren't so good early in the morning (which it is here where I am currently), but basically in F with highs at 80 F I usually do ok shipping them. If they are more like 85 it becomes iffy. If the temps will hit 90 F at either the source or the destination, they usually don't survive. That's with USPS, of course and I ship them Express, which varies between overnight and 2nd day depending on where I ship them.

_________________
Michael Bush
www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm
"Everything works if you let it"

The heat killing them is what I'm starting to believe happened. As soon as I found out they did not make the next morning delivery I started to worry because I knew we were in for a major heat wave all day. Its the first time its been hot like this in two years; figures right when I'm shipping. If they had arrived the next a.m as they were supposed to, maybe they would have made it.

	Dancing Bee Apiaries wrote:
	If they had arrived the next a.m as they were supposed to, maybe they would have made it.

In all the years we shipped queens we didn't have any losses in the mail. We didn't pay for extra special postage, sometimes they would take up to 5 days in the mail.
I have never liked the idea of battery cages. Taking a variety of queens from different hives, then taking all bees from one hive is dangerous. Some bees resent being given a different queen and will attack and ball her. The only way round that would be to take bees from a queenless hive, not really feasible.
We never used battery cages, much prefer individual cages but with 7 workers, worked well for many years.

_________________
David Eyre,
Forum owner.

I'm the "customer" in this case. Todd has been very helpful in resolving the issue.

(shipped Monday, arrived Wednesday... was supposed to arrive Tuesday)

The box arrived at my office a day late; delivery guy said it showed up that morning, so it obviously sat the day at a depot in Toronto (Shipped Port Hope to Sudbury; ~600 km's). Weather on Tuesday and Wednesday was over 30C in the shade, both in Toronto and Sudbury.

When it arrived I immediately opened the box; only 2-3 dead attendants 'outside' the queen cages, in the box. 5 queens dead (half the attendants dead in those cages). Gave them water, brought them into the air conditioned office. By the time I left work (4.5 hours after arrival), 2 more queens were dead, and one looked questionable.

Attendants outside the cages were obviously giving preference to one or two specific cages at this point; not balling, just climbing on those cages... no aggression. The battery box wasn't packed full of attendants; I didn't count, but maybe 15-20 max.

We are both very curious if excessive heat could be the problem. If we had been able to ship last week, the weather was perfect (our holdup was the stat. holiday on Thursday July 1st... so we had to wait till Monday to ship them.)

And thanks again to Todd; Happened to be a wife of a friend was in his area the next day, and coming back up this way... he was able to get our replacements ready that night and she picked them up the next morning.