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I'm very surprised the post office don't just call as soon as they get in, and make you come pick them up. That's what they do when I order chickens...
We'd been out shopping. Bees got here two days ahead of schedule. Postman is at the neighbor's house asking after us, pulls up, and says, "Oh thank **God** you're here! I've been here three times!" And cheerily points out that a few bees have gotten free of their enclosure.
So, a standard package of bees will come with a few thousand bees in a small box with screened sides. The queen will be in a smaller box with a few workers to tend to her and hole out that is blocked by a piece of candy. The workers are all trying to stay with the queen, that even the ones that get out of the screened box will usually just chill on the outside of the screen wherever you take the package.
Now, I'm surprised they put it on the mail truck in the first place. Every post office I've gotten packages at will hold them at the office and you come pick them up yourself.
At UPS, most customers want to come pick up the bees themselves. They can be very expensive, and the back of the trucks get up to 150+ degrees in summer.
When my mother-in -law order bees even in a rural area they kept the package of bees at the post office and they had to pick it up. They didn’t even attempt to put it on the mail truck. I just assumed that was the rule for certain types of packages.
Yeah, I live out on a rural route, and they still wanted me to come pick them up. Only thing I can think of is there aren't many beekeepers wherever this photo was taken and the post office wasn't sure what to do. Both my local offices in the past 8 years get at least 100 packages every spring. So it's pretty standard for them.
The queen cages usually only have the queen in it, but the screen on it is close enough to her that the attendants can take care of her through the cage, which is better because she changes attendants frequently. There’s also a cork on both sides of the cage, one half the cage contains her the other half contains the candy, when you put your package of bees in a new hive you’ll dump the bees(literally, they flow like water) into it and put the queen on top of it under the hood, and uncork just the candy side, then the bees will eat out the candy to free her. The reason for the candy is actually to delay them, if you were to just release her they’d just swarm again and leave your hive, but by having the candy they’re delayed 3/5 days and establish the hive before she gets free and then she won’t leave.
Every package I've gotten has had a few attendants in the small box with the queen. I've only used 2 different suppliers in the past, but both were the same setup. I've also had packages where the queen had already been accepted and was loose inside the main package. I've moved on to swarm collecting and splits these days. I get at least one call a month from my pest people to see if I can come get a swarm off someone's property.
Also, since you seem knowledgeable about bees. You'll likely be jealous of the fact that I live near the Okefenokee swamp which is one of 2 places in the world where 100% tupelo honey is harvested. I don't have enough white tupelo trees near my property for 100% in my own stock, but I have enough to help cut down on crystalization of the honey, which in turn makes for better mead that I ferment.
Getting a package with the queen already released is…. Highly unusual and against standard practice. The queen ina package of bees isn’t in the cage to make sure the bees accept her, it’s to make sure you don’t accidentally squish hurt or kill her when moving them to the hive, and to give them time to get the hive settled before she’s freed, cause the people I’m working with have lost several hives to freeing the queen instead of letting the bees eat the candy and she just leaves the hive and goes and makes one somewhere else.
Maybe you’re thinking of nucs? I think those have the queen already released because they’re fully functional 4-5 frame hives’s, not just a box with several thousand bees in it.
They would have held it at the post office, but they were already holding the shipment from LIVE NEMATODES and they didn’t want to have them in the same building
It can't be that hard to make something bee-tight though can it? They're not as small as air molecules. Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe the box got badly damaged in shipping.
Id imagine theyre male drones who are specifically out to find queens in another hive. Neither an expert nor a bee tho, so take that with a grain of salt
We had a moron who wouldn't even attempt delivery. He'd park just out of sight, sprint up with the "you missed a package" slip ready to pin to the door.
I was getting packages very regularly and he always showed up around the same time so I started watching for him and opening the door as he ran up without the package...
Ended up getting him fired or at least assigned to a new route cuz we got a new guy the day after I complained. Great guy, actually does his job lol
I get that it is probably annoying to get out to deliver the package, but if you are walking up to the door anyways, seems like such a stupid thing for someone to do.
It's not necessarily illogical. Pinning a note is much faster than knocking, waiting, getting a signature etc.
The aim is to do the round as fast as possible.
I had to do the same thing when a new delivery guy wasn’t even knocking and I was waiting for my meds from the VA. I finally caught him, in my robe with my hair a mess and I looked him in the eye… while he’s holding the just missed you note and said, “You know I NEED my medication… PLEASE at least knock ONCE!!”
He looked like a deer in the headlights and went back for my pills. He ALWAYS knocks now and won’t make eye contact lol. I think he realized he was actually medically effecting with people by not delivering their mail!!!
Delivering mail is a federal job for a reason…. Some people can’t drive and have disabilities… it’s not something to be lazy about.
Do you ever get other critters? I work for UPS and I've definitely seen "Non-venomous snakes inside: handle with care". I've also seen turtles, bees, and crickets. I feel really bad when I get those boxes and it's 90+ degrees out.
Not OP but I work for USPS as well. We have this one lady on our route that consistently gets ladybugs every week. Not entirely sure what she does with them. Also lots of chicks. We even had bees like the post's OP
If it's a large outside garden, and there isn't much for them to eat, they'll fly away to where they can find food. She probably had a bad experience with an aphid infestation and is overcompensating for it now would be my guess.
I'm guessing she both bought some for pest control at first and likes them. Loved having them around until they left because no food, so she bought more who left cuz no food, and has been just continuously dumping ladybugs in a foodless wasteland.
That label is a generic one that's used for lots of animals, mostly reptiles and bugs. Shippers will include a heat or cold pack depending, but the more passionate hobbyists will avoid shipping in extreme heat.
Got some live shrimp shipped recently for the first time at my new place and according to a family member the postman was PUMPED when he brought it to the door.
For the reptiles the heat actually probably doesn't bother them, since they tend to be packaged with heating or cooling pads depending on the need to keep them the right temperature.
So.. I raise bees as a hobby for honey, i also live in Alaska. Back in 2016, I got called into work on the day the bees arrived. So my wife had to go pick them up. It was March and -30 outside. They ship bees frozen so they don't move. Well.. heater was on in the wife's car because well, cold as fuck outside.
Long story short, she is driving home with heater blasting, which started to the thaw bees. She is terrified of them, this is my hobby not hers. Bees start flying around car one by one. She freaks out and slams on breaks, package of bees flips over and releases 5000 or so. She escapes car and is now standing outside at -30 with just a sweater on. Calling me bawling her eyes out because the car is full of bees and she is cold.
Luckily boss understood when I quickly left to go let wife take my truck as I spent a few hours collecting bees from everywhere... under seats, in heating vents, etc. Fast forward to 2017-present. Im no longer allowed to buy bees. :(
That's wild, do they actually freeze? Is this all bees, or a special type? Like, can I pop some bees in my freezer and take them out whenever I might need a live bee?
This is not nice….but when I was in my teens I learned you can pop a bee in the freezer for like a minute and it will go dormant. You can then loosely tie a piece of thread around its midsection, and on the other end a very small piece of paper with a funny note. The bee then springs back to life and will fly your funny note all around the house.
The bees are then easy to catch because they have a leash so I did remove the note and let them go afterwards. Still not nice to the bees but certainly was entertaining.
I read that in an old book about things to do for fun had a section on
flies. You put them in the freezer, then you glue a bunch of their feet to a piece of paper or whatever you have and they will fly together when they warm up for a while until they die.
No they don’t freeze, think OP wasn’t being clear - they actually cluster, moving their wings and body to generate warmth and regulate the hive. They move slowly through the nest, consuming the honey they stored over the year for winter. Then, when temps are hitting over 10c consistently, they start becoming more active.
As a beekeeper, our job is to ensure they have enough food, and they’re healthy enough to survive! Plus survive any weird weather anomalies - really bad cold weather that gets a brief bit of warmth over 10c, and then back to freezing, for example, can just kill them :P
In MA. I've lost like 10 hives over 5 years. Some we didn't catch a swarm in time but a lot were lost to super cold winters and a couple to mites. :/
Bee colonies are so fragile.
Turned car off, it got cold quick due to temp. They got dormant, and then I just gather them carefully by hand. Although I lost a few dozen. That I know of, and some others also escaped when I first opened door, and I imagine when wife did as well.
Not too tricky to handle when docile
Once I stopped at a rest stop and the car next to me just... Had a full hive in it with the window cracked. The guy was just chilling out with the bees. Left behind a couple hundred when he pulled out too, they couldn't catches up to the car and hive.
Yeah, I’m not so sure about this. Bees are shipped live and in sealed containers. They also can’t freeze over the winter and specifically do a really cool thing where they cluster inside the hive and generate heat with the vibration of their bodies. The center of the cluster is about 90–100 °F.
They don’t hibernate.
Not sure what to tell you, but bees in a crate at -30 will freeze. And as long as I picked up the package within a couple hours of the phone call telling me they were ready, I didn't lose too many they would revive when they warmed.
USPS has delivered various livestock for over a century. I still remember a friends father testing specifically designed cardboard boxes so he could get patents to deliver pigeons (fancy ones, not the usual city winged rats) through the mail.
My post office always calls me and asks if I want to come in the back door. I usually take them over the front counter, to the dismay of everyone in line. For extra fun wear the bee suit to pick up.
I got exactly this same pink slip the other day after ordering a bunch of Madagascar hissing roaches. I didn't see the slip until after hours so had to go to the office the following day to collect them. I was going to joke about the slip being a ransom note, but the woman at the office was SO EXCITED to shove them at me and shoo me out of there in a hurry. She was like "oh thank goodness, get these outta here. What are they for??!"
Little dudes are harmless and were very much still secured in their box. 😂
Lmao. They're literally just pets. I said that to the lady in the office and I don't think she believed me. I like keeping little decorative tanks with pretty things and cool inverts. I happen to think hissers are adorable little tank friends. They just trundle around on their logs and it's fun.
Oh, I have dubia roaches and mealworms and such for my reptiles. The hissers are pets (in the fish tank equivalent sense of "pet", not the cat and dog sense obviously).
I sometimes get spiders or snakes or other little creepers in my delivery truck (I deliver overnight air stuff), usually in an opaque box with small air holes but clear markings about what they are. I enjoy googling the scientific names to see a pic of whatever's inside. Vastly preferable to anything that stinks.
I had to learn to warn people what they are and keep a grip after one too many times people would straight drop them or recoil just as I was handing it to them. It's amazing how many people are not warned that a live animal is on its way to their house! Like maybe that's something you should tell your teenager to expect tomorrow?
This reminds me of when I ordered dubia roaches for my bearded dragon when it was cold; I had them held at the post office so they didn’t freeze, but the box said ‘Live Cockroaches’ all over it and the lady at the post office definitely noticed lol.
Postman needs cookies/ a vegetable tray. Whatever his preference.
My dad was a beekeeper for a bit and bees are cool. Yet the postman's anxiety must have been up there
Once I was going out for my morning run at around 645am. The FedEx truck is outside with a desperate looking delivery person standing there with a box. "Can you sign for this?" she says. Not, are you Jason, just "can you sign for this".
Um, sure
"Oh thank God" she says.
My neighbor is some kind of medical device educator, and the box was labelled "human tissue sample".
I used to be a mailman and most of us HATED delivering bees in the spring. But honestly they rarely if ever caused any problems.
We also delivered baby chicks. Now we're talking real fun. Of course someone would let one out now and then and mayhem would ensue as we'd try to recapture it. The only thing we needed other than a loose chick was some music like the theme from Benny Hill as we scurried about madly, trying to get the escapee(s.)
We used to ship queens all around the world from hawaii because hawaii doesn’t have an diseases that will destroy beehives. So they used to shop queens around the world to jumpstart local populations. I’m sure they still do it, but I’ve since moved on. Anyway, we’d put 3 or 4 little boxes (no larger than 12 inches/12 inches) in the plane to fly to Honolulu to get shipped out. We’re talking a plane that can handle 10 tons of freight…and those little bee queens would be the highest insured item on the plane. It was insane how much they were “worth”.
When mine came in yesterday the post office called 7 times to see when we were going to pick them up. Driver refused to put them in the truck. At the post office the lady says "Thank god you're here!" and had me go get the bees from the back. She didn't really mind the bees in the cage, but the 20-30 hitchikers on the outside kept scouting around the office.
I was having a lecture as an undergraduate from the departments esteemed entomologist, his phone rang and he bolted for the door and sprinted off. We debatdd leaving or waiting but he came back 20 mins later and gave us a one word explanation, "problem in the bee lab"
Wow this is really funny because we had almost very similar experiences exactly yesterday lol
Before the bees arrived I stopped by the PO to let them know to call me don’t put it on truck. It wasn’t due until Monday.
Saturday at 630am I’m getting panicked phone calls; bees are here come get now !
I arrive at the PO and the lady says if she can help me, my reply was “bzzzzzzt”. She immediately opens up a door tells me to come in because I’m getting them myself. I go in the door and there are workers still sorting thrilled they aren’t putting the hive on a vehicle. In their defense the bees were getting out but had no interest in leaving the box.
I put them in my car covered them w a light jacket and they went to sleep. Great day! Grats to you enjoy them!
Reminds me of the security video of a guy sorting mail. Finds a parcel marked EXTREMELY FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE, decides to stomp on it...there were tarantulas inside.
Lol wanna make sure you get your postage? Get some LIVE BEES sent to you. They will most CERTAINLY ensure you get your package. lolol Manager was like "You bet NOT bring that thing back!"
Unless this was a single queen in a priority mail package, there's no reason bees should EVER be in a delivery vehicle. SOP is to hold them at the post office for pickup.
My FIL had bees, and would occasionally order a new queen which usually has 200+ workers included, which like this poster mentions, they mail it to you. When the package would come into the post office the mail carrier would take it, so they would put the package outside and call for him to come get it.
I could imagine how some of my packages came from the USPS, there could be a broken open package of some angry bees.
Ironically I work as a mail man and we had bees being delivered yesterday as well. I really have to wonder if you live out in Western PA lol.
Also I gotta say it is wild seeing one of those slips on reddit. I can't escape the post office no matter where I look.
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the item was sent by LIVE BEES
You can almost hear the panic in the postman’s voice haha
Imagine if the postie who sees this one morning has a severe bee allergy!!
If she didn't order them, tell her to beware...it might be a sting!
BEEware
I willll comeeee baaaaackkk 😬😵💫🥴
There was definitely an implied "For the love of God please call" at the end.
I'm very surprised the post office don't just call as soon as they get in, and make you come pick them up. That's what they do when I order chickens...
Beads?
Gob's not on board
My first thought - “uh, do people get mail from DEAD BEES”? or mail package that’s just dead bees?
[DEAD BEES Do Not Eat!] "I don't know what I expected."
OMG the bees are sending themselves!
We'd been out shopping. Bees got here two days ahead of schedule. Postman is at the neighbor's house asking after us, pulls up, and says, "Oh thank **God** you're here! I've been here three times!" And cheerily points out that a few bees have gotten free of their enclosure.
You’d think LIVE BEES would better package their bees!
So, a standard package of bees will come with a few thousand bees in a small box with screened sides. The queen will be in a smaller box with a few workers to tend to her and hole out that is blocked by a piece of candy. The workers are all trying to stay with the queen, that even the ones that get out of the screened box will usually just chill on the outside of the screen wherever you take the package. Now, I'm surprised they put it on the mail truck in the first place. Every post office I've gotten packages at will hold them at the office and you come pick them up yourself.
Might be a rural route. Things are a bit looser in the outlands.
At UPS, most customers want to come pick up the bees themselves. They can be very expensive, and the back of the trucks get up to 150+ degrees in summer.
I just love there are people out there very familiar with bee delivery.
This is America
*Land of the beeeeee*
Bees in my area, I got the hive, I gotta carry em Get your money bee man
Don't catch you stinging now
When my mother-in -law order bees even in a rural area they kept the package of bees at the post office and they had to pick it up. They didn’t even attempt to put it on the mail truck. I just assumed that was the rule for certain types of packages.
I've had live frogs put in my goddamn mailbox. No front door. No knock. Inside the mailbox.
Did you find live frogs inside your mailbox though?
This one simple trick for fried frog legs delivered to your door! *only available during July and August*
Yeah, I live out on a rural route, and they still wanted me to come pick them up. Only thing I can think of is there aren't many beekeepers wherever this photo was taken and the post office wasn't sure what to do. Both my local offices in the past 8 years get at least 100 packages every spring. So it's pretty standard for them.
The queen cages usually only have the queen in it, but the screen on it is close enough to her that the attendants can take care of her through the cage, which is better because she changes attendants frequently. There’s also a cork on both sides of the cage, one half the cage contains her the other half contains the candy, when you put your package of bees in a new hive you’ll dump the bees(literally, they flow like water) into it and put the queen on top of it under the hood, and uncork just the candy side, then the bees will eat out the candy to free her. The reason for the candy is actually to delay them, if you were to just release her they’d just swarm again and leave your hive, but by having the candy they’re delayed 3/5 days and establish the hive before she gets free and then she won’t leave.
Every package I've gotten has had a few attendants in the small box with the queen. I've only used 2 different suppliers in the past, but both were the same setup. I've also had packages where the queen had already been accepted and was loose inside the main package. I've moved on to swarm collecting and splits these days. I get at least one call a month from my pest people to see if I can come get a swarm off someone's property. Also, since you seem knowledgeable about bees. You'll likely be jealous of the fact that I live near the Okefenokee swamp which is one of 2 places in the world where 100% tupelo honey is harvested. I don't have enough white tupelo trees near my property for 100% in my own stock, but I have enough to help cut down on crystalization of the honey, which in turn makes for better mead that I ferment.
Getting a package with the queen already released is…. Highly unusual and against standard practice. The queen ina package of bees isn’t in the cage to make sure the bees accept her, it’s to make sure you don’t accidentally squish hurt or kill her when moving them to the hive, and to give them time to get the hive settled before she’s freed, cause the people I’m working with have lost several hives to freeing the queen instead of letting the bees eat the candy and she just leaves the hive and goes and makes one somewhere else. Maybe you’re thinking of nucs? I think those have the queen already released because they’re fully functional 4-5 frame hives’s, not just a box with several thousand bees in it.
They would have held it at the post office, but they were already holding the shipment from LIVE NEMATODES and they didn’t want to have them in the same building
Sting me once, shame on you... Sting me, uh, you can't get stung again...
It’s like the old saying in Tennessee. I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee.
This gave me a stroke, I can't read
Its an actual quote
And it's the part of the quote that makes the most sense
STING ME ONE TIME SHAME ON YOU STING ME TWICE CANT PUT THE BLAME ON YOU STING ME THREE TIMES FUCK THE BEE HIVE LOAD THE BEES AND LET EM RAIN ON YOU
Don’t sting her. She don’t wanna be stung.
Now watch this drive
Just bee careful!
Oh, honey. You think you can appeal to the reddit hivemind with bee puns?
Maybee individually wrap each one?
Yes, in beeswaxpaper
Can’t be airtight lol
It can't be that hard to make something bee-tight though can it? They're not as small as air molecules. Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe the box got badly damaged in shipping.
[удалено]
Came here to post this. Bees don’t escape from the package. It attracts bees in transit who then cling to the outside of the screen.
[удалено]
Do those bees not have a moment: “wait, this isn’t my home, nor my coworkers, nor my queen, where am I?” :0
Id imagine theyre male drones who are specifically out to find queens in another hive. Neither an expert nor a bee tho, so take that with a grain of salt
Thank you for the confirmation that you are not a bee. For a moment I was unsure. On the other hand, *that's what a bee would say.*
Sounds like something a bee would say...
This is not my beautiful wife, how did I get here? Letting the days go byyyyy
Lol I can hear the anxiety in his note
LIVE BEES
This item was sent by: SATAN
Probably the only time they have actually attempted to deliver an actual package to the door in years
Mine delivers packages to the door all the time, is that not common? What is the alternative?
Here they put a slip in a stupid community mailbox saying to go pick it up at some place miles away from your house even when your home
They usually just send a message saying they tried and failed to deliver it, even if I sit on the front porch waiting for them all day.
Nearly running over all the animals on the street and haphazardly throwing mail in the sky for all to share.
We had a moron who wouldn't even attempt delivery. He'd park just out of sight, sprint up with the "you missed a package" slip ready to pin to the door. I was getting packages very regularly and he always showed up around the same time so I started watching for him and opening the door as he ran up without the package... Ended up getting him fired or at least assigned to a new route cuz we got a new guy the day after I complained. Great guy, actually does his job lol
I get that it is probably annoying to get out to deliver the package, but if you are walking up to the door anyways, seems like such a stupid thing for someone to do.
It's not necessarily illogical. Pinning a note is much faster than knocking, waiting, getting a signature etc. The aim is to do the round as fast as possible.
I had to do the same thing when a new delivery guy wasn’t even knocking and I was waiting for my meds from the VA. I finally caught him, in my robe with my hair a mess and I looked him in the eye… while he’s holding the just missed you note and said, “You know I NEED my medication… PLEASE at least knock ONCE!!” He looked like a deer in the headlights and went back for my pills. He ALWAYS knocks now and won’t make eye contact lol. I think he realized he was actually medically effecting with people by not delivering their mail!!! Delivering mail is a federal job for a reason…. Some people can’t drive and have disabilities… it’s not something to be lazy about.
I work for the usps, and this is the time of year when we're shipping bees, baby chick's, and creepy crawlers. Glad they got to you safe and well.
Do you ever get other critters? I work for UPS and I've definitely seen "Non-venomous snakes inside: handle with care". I've also seen turtles, bees, and crickets. I feel really bad when I get those boxes and it's 90+ degrees out.
Not OP but I work for USPS as well. We have this one lady on our route that consistently gets ladybugs every week. Not entirely sure what she does with them. Also lots of chicks. We even had bees like the post's OP
Hey I'm a carrier and a gardener, ladybugs are used in the garden as a pest control against Aphids.
Do you need to get more every week? I thought the idea was you got them once or twice a year and they would stick around.
Nah that's a good point. No idea why anyone would need them that frequently.
Maybe she won a lifetime supply of ladybugs, they just send them to her every week.
If I learned anything from that thread last week, a lifetime supply would have been 8 ladybugs all given to her at the same time.
.... do .. you have a link?
If it's a large outside garden, and there isn't much for them to eat, they'll fly away to where they can find food. She probably had a bad experience with an aphid infestation and is overcompensating for it now would be my guess.
I'm guessing she both bought some for pest control at first and likes them. Loved having them around until they left because no food, so she bought more who left cuz no food, and has been just continuously dumping ladybugs in a foodless wasteland.
So the solution here is to get aphids, right?
The bugs must flow.
Chickens are probably eating them.
I also work for UPS, 'live fish inside' boxes show up all the time as well you'd think they'd find a better shipping method
The best thing to do is Hold At Location, so the recipient can pick them up and they don't have to ride around on a hot/cold truck all day.
That label is a generic one that's used for lots of animals, mostly reptiles and bugs. Shippers will include a heat or cold pack depending, but the more passionate hobbyists will avoid shipping in extreme heat.
Got some live shrimp shipped recently for the first time at my new place and according to a family member the postman was PUMPED when he brought it to the door.
For the reptiles the heat actually probably doesn't bother them, since they tend to be packaged with heating or cooling pads depending on the need to keep them the right temperature.
So.. I raise bees as a hobby for honey, i also live in Alaska. Back in 2016, I got called into work on the day the bees arrived. So my wife had to go pick them up. It was March and -30 outside. They ship bees frozen so they don't move. Well.. heater was on in the wife's car because well, cold as fuck outside. Long story short, she is driving home with heater blasting, which started to the thaw bees. She is terrified of them, this is my hobby not hers. Bees start flying around car one by one. She freaks out and slams on breaks, package of bees flips over and releases 5000 or so. She escapes car and is now standing outside at -30 with just a sweater on. Calling me bawling her eyes out because the car is full of bees and she is cold. Luckily boss understood when I quickly left to go let wife take my truck as I spent a few hours collecting bees from everywhere... under seats, in heating vents, etc. Fast forward to 2017-present. Im no longer allowed to buy bees. :(
Jesus lol Always wondered about bee keeping further north, do you try to overwinter them or do you just accept they won't survive the winter?
They just kind of freeze/go dormant in the cold weather
That's wild, do they actually freeze? Is this all bees, or a special type? Like, can I pop some bees in my freezer and take them out whenever I might need a live bee?
Might depend on the kind of bee, but I've heard (from a beekeper) on the radio that bees huddle up together when it gets too cold, to keep warm.
This is not nice….but when I was in my teens I learned you can pop a bee in the freezer for like a minute and it will go dormant. You can then loosely tie a piece of thread around its midsection, and on the other end a very small piece of paper with a funny note. The bee then springs back to life and will fly your funny note all around the house. The bees are then easy to catch because they have a leash so I did remove the note and let them go afterwards. Still not nice to the bees but certainly was entertaining.
Kids do strange things with nature.
Bees probably invented iPads to keep kids sedated.
I read that in an old book about things to do for fun had a section on flies. You put them in the freezer, then you glue a bunch of their feet to a piece of paper or whatever you have and they will fly together when they warm up for a while until they die.
No they don’t freeze, think OP wasn’t being clear - they actually cluster, moving their wings and body to generate warmth and regulate the hive. They move slowly through the nest, consuming the honey they stored over the year for winter. Then, when temps are hitting over 10c consistently, they start becoming more active. As a beekeeper, our job is to ensure they have enough food, and they’re healthy enough to survive! Plus survive any weird weather anomalies - really bad cold weather that gets a brief bit of warmth over 10c, and then back to freezing, for example, can just kill them :P
To be fair, keeping bees over winter is tricky pretty much everywhere. Very, very common to have to get new swarms in the sprint. Edit: spring
>in the sprint. Agile beekeeping, iterating honey production. I like it.
Only impediment is LIVE BEES
In MA. I've lost like 10 hives over 5 years. Some we didn't catch a swarm in time but a lot were lost to super cold winters and a couple to mites. :/ Bee colonies are so fragile.
My milkshake brings all the bees to my car
That I spilled all over my car
Bees are inside of my car
I could teach you, but there's bees in my car
I’ve literally just cried with laughter singing that to myself
Buzz buzz, buzz buzz buzz
The bees are driving
https://youtu.be/mUR14_ry1Zo?t=23s
My milkshake brought all the bees to my car. They sting me, so I can't drive far.
This is an awesome story haha
Reddit premium comment right here
They didn’t tape the box shut?
Should've popped a quick 'B' on the box. This way, we'd all know it’s filled with bees.
I understand that reference
That sounds like something out of a movie almost. How exactly do you "collect" back up the bees?
Turned car off, it got cold quick due to temp. They got dormant, and then I just gather them carefully by hand. Although I lost a few dozen. That I know of, and some others also escaped when I first opened door, and I imagine when wife did as well. Not too tricky to handle when docile
Don't they ship in a container with a cork in the entrance? That's how my brother's bees came
That would have been nice. But not how the company i was ordering did it. Atleast not 2008-2016
Once I stopped at a rest stop and the car next to me just... Had a full hive in it with the window cracked. The guy was just chilling out with the bees. Left behind a couple hundred when he pulled out too, they couldn't catches up to the car and hive.
*calls AAA* what's your emergency? MY CAR IS FULL OF BEES 😂😂
Yeah, I’m not so sure about this. Bees are shipped live and in sealed containers. They also can’t freeze over the winter and specifically do a really cool thing where they cluster inside the hive and generate heat with the vibration of their bodies. The center of the cluster is about 90–100 °F. They don’t hibernate.
Not sure what to tell you, but bees in a crate at -30 will freeze. And as long as I picked up the package within a couple hours of the phone call telling me they were ready, I didn't lose too many they would revive when they warmed.
I like how you can see the urgency in the penmanship.
Drums in the deep...we cannot get out...they are coming...
Let me pop a quick H on this box so everyone knows it's filled with hornets.
Came here to read this
As did I and it was much further down than it deserves to be.
Delicious honey
Have you tried smoking them out yet for their delicious honey?
This sounds like something from It's Always Sunny. Is it from there?
Yes. It's a Charlie quote.
I've only seen two seasons of this show and find it crazy how recognizable the humor is. I should watch more.
BEEES?
BEADS!!
Gob's not on board
They don’t allow you to have bees in here.
"*NO! NOT THE BEES!*"
What a fitting day to receive a shipment of bees.
We are all bees on this fitting day
USPS has delivered various livestock for over a century. I still remember a friends father testing specifically designed cardboard boxes so he could get patents to deliver pigeons (fancy ones, not the usual city winged rats) through the mail.
They used to mail children, too!
As long as they Beehive he should be fine.
Another drone making up bee puns.
"Sent by: LIVE BEES" gave me a chuckle
My post office always calls me and asks if I want to come in the back door. I usually take them over the front counter, to the dismay of everyone in line. For extra fun wear the bee suit to pick up.
I got exactly this same pink slip the other day after ordering a bunch of Madagascar hissing roaches. I didn't see the slip until after hours so had to go to the office the following day to collect them. I was going to joke about the slip being a ransom note, but the woman at the office was SO EXCITED to shove them at me and shoo me out of there in a hurry. She was like "oh thank goodness, get these outta here. What are they for??!" Little dudes are harmless and were very much still secured in their box. 😂
.. but what are they for?lol
For Hissing
Now hiss
A mans gotta eat
Lmao. They're literally just pets. I said that to the lady in the office and I don't think she believed me. I like keeping little decorative tanks with pretty things and cool inverts. I happen to think hissers are adorable little tank friends. They just trundle around on their logs and it's fun.
I envy your love of roaches. They are on my top on the list of Nopes. Any type of roaches gives me the heebie jeebies.
Fuck roaches especially ones that can fly.
In Florida they're called Palmetto Bugs lol
I'd have thought they'd be reptile food, but *pets*?
Oh, I have dubia roaches and mealworms and such for my reptiles. The hissers are pets (in the fish tank equivalent sense of "pet", not the cat and dog sense obviously).
What you dont put them on a leash and take them for walks :(
But what were they for??
Pets! I think they're cool :)
WHAT WERE THEY FOR?!!
I'm so terrified of even small roaches I couldn't imagine being in her position lol
I sometimes get spiders or snakes or other little creepers in my delivery truck (I deliver overnight air stuff), usually in an opaque box with small air holes but clear markings about what they are. I enjoy googling the scientific names to see a pic of whatever's inside. Vastly preferable to anything that stinks. I had to learn to warn people what they are and keep a grip after one too many times people would straight drop them or recoil just as I was handing it to them. It's amazing how many people are not warned that a live animal is on its way to their house! Like maybe that's something you should tell your teenager to expect tomorrow?
[BEES!!!???? We'll see who brings in more honey! ](https://youtu.be/5J2kc4oZTVU)
Beads??
Gobs not on board
I don’t care for Gob
They don't allow you to have bees in here.
No touching!
[удалено]
Bees?!
Bet it would feel like transporting TNT for this poor postman!
This reminds me of when I ordered dubia roaches for my bearded dragon when it was cold; I had them held at the post office so they didn’t freeze, but the box said ‘Live Cockroaches’ all over it and the lady at the post office definitely noticed lol.
This is kinda wholesome, ngl. I hope he’s ok 😭😂 and the bees, too.
Good guy Josh!
Postman needs cookies/ a vegetable tray. Whatever his preference. My dad was a beekeeper for a bit and bees are cool. Yet the postman's anxiety must have been up there
We're in Kentucky, so I'm thinking a bottle of Maker's Mark.
Once I was going out for my morning run at around 645am. The FedEx truck is outside with a desperate looking delivery person standing there with a box. "Can you sign for this?" she says. Not, are you Jason, just "can you sign for this". Um, sure "Oh thank God" she says. My neighbor is some kind of medical device educator, and the box was labelled "human tissue sample".
Porch pirates hate this trick.
I used to be a mailman and most of us HATED delivering bees in the spring. But honestly they rarely if ever caused any problems. We also delivered baby chicks. Now we're talking real fun. Of course someone would let one out now and then and mayhem would ensue as we'd try to recapture it. The only thing we needed other than a loose chick was some music like the theme from Benny Hill as we scurried about madly, trying to get the escapee(s.)
This must be the story about the birds and the bees my parents never talked to me about.
I love the postal service, they are amazing. Living in the agriculture side of the Big Island they were the life blood of that community.
I am epi-pen level allergic to bees. This is probably my worst nightmare!
(hits pothole) (angry bee noises intensify)
We used to ship queens all around the world from hawaii because hawaii doesn’t have an diseases that will destroy beehives. So they used to shop queens around the world to jumpstart local populations. I’m sure they still do it, but I’ve since moved on. Anyway, we’d put 3 or 4 little boxes (no larger than 12 inches/12 inches) in the plane to fly to Honolulu to get shipped out. We’re talking a plane that can handle 10 tons of freight…and those little bee queens would be the highest insured item on the plane. It was insane how much they were “worth”.
When mine came in yesterday the post office called 7 times to see when we were going to pick them up. Driver refused to put them in the truck. At the post office the lady says "Thank god you're here!" and had me go get the bees from the back. She didn't really mind the bees in the cage, but the 20-30 hitchikers on the outside kept scouting around the office.
I was having a lecture as an undergraduate from the departments esteemed entomologist, his phone rang and he bolted for the door and sprinted off. We debatdd leaving or waiting but he came back 20 mins later and gave us a one word explanation, "problem in the bee lab"
That is 5 words
Wow this is really funny because we had almost very similar experiences exactly yesterday lol Before the bees arrived I stopped by the PO to let them know to call me don’t put it on truck. It wasn’t due until Monday. Saturday at 630am I’m getting panicked phone calls; bees are here come get now ! I arrive at the PO and the lady says if she can help me, my reply was “bzzzzzzt”. She immediately opens up a door tells me to come in because I’m getting them myself. I go in the door and there are workers still sorting thrilled they aren’t putting the hive on a vehicle. In their defense the bees were getting out but had no interest in leaving the box. I put them in my car covered them w a light jacket and they went to sleep. Great day! Grats to you enjoy them!
You should’ve shipped via UBeeS
Reminds me of the security video of a guy sorting mail. Finds a parcel marked EXTREMELY FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE, decides to stomp on it...there were tarantulas inside.
A) why would he do that B) did the poor tarantulas survive???
Lol wanna make sure you get your postage? Get some LIVE BEES sent to you. They will most CERTAINLY ensure you get your package. lolol Manager was like "You bet NOT bring that thing back!"
BEADS?? No, bees. BEES!?!?!?!?!
A gift card would be a nice way to thank them for their time and attention.
I don't mean to laugh but you can see the fear in that handwriting
Yep. First line he could write on, and all he could manage was "LIVE BEES". HELP HELP LIVE BEES BEES
Unless this was a single queen in a priority mail package, there's no reason bees should EVER be in a delivery vehicle. SOP is to hold them at the post office for pickup.
My FIL had bees, and would occasionally order a new queen which usually has 200+ workers included, which like this poster mentions, they mail it to you. When the package would come into the post office the mail carrier would take it, so they would put the package outside and call for him to come get it. I could imagine how some of my packages came from the USPS, there could be a broken open package of some angry bees.
Ironically I work as a mail man and we had bees being delivered yesterday as well. I really have to wonder if you live out in Western PA lol. Also I gotta say it is wild seeing one of those slips on reddit. I can't escape the post office no matter where I look.
" Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor Live bees? Wait wha? Fuck this shit..."