BOSTON – Beekeepers in New England, where bee husbandry is a honey of a business, are abuzz over a new post office shipping policy that bans shipping bees through the mail to waiting hives in the region.

Each spring, honey bees have headed to New England by the millions – in crates, not by flying, shipped by Southern breeders who supplant the Northern honeybee stock killed by winter cold and parasitic mites.

But a U.S. Postal Service manager in Georgia, upset at the sticky mess from bee packages left in trucks and the number of bees that die during shipping, has restricted the distance bees can travel by post from Georgia, cutting off a key resupply route for New England.

Under the new policy, which began last October, the post office won’t ship bees more than 600 miles from his facility, making southern New Jersey the northernmost point where bees can be shipped from Georgia.

“Without bees, you’re not going anywhere,” said Southboro beekeeper Ray Davis. “Boy, I’ll tell you, it’s a kick in the butt.”

He said he’ll have to get a truck and head down to Georgia to pick up his packages of bees that he ordered for the spring.

“I got 130 packages sitting in Georgia right now that I have to go get, unless they change their mind,” he said. “Twenty-three hours down, 23 hours back. It puts a terrific load on the whole operation for me.”

The change comes at a bad time for East Coast beekeepers. Last winter wiped out colonies throughout the region, and hives from Massachusetts to Illinois have been decimated by mites that infest the bee’s breathing tubes. Along the East Coast, some keepers’ losses approached 90 percent last year.

The bees are sent by post office surface transportation in packages containing about 12,000 drones and a queen bee. A sugary syrup in a tin with holes feeds the bees on the trip, and the insects are supposed to be sent on ventilated trucks.

The post office doesn’t insure bees for distances longer than about 600 miles, but until last fall would send them further without insurance.

But last October, Georgia postal manager Tracy Peugh sent out a letter saying that the U.S. Postal Service was “inundated” with complaints about bee shipments.

The problem, Peugh wrote, was that the syrup was spilling, causing a sticky mess in the trucks that often required steam cleaning. Furthermore, the postal service was receiving complaints of bees dead on arrival.

“This has left me with no alternative but to begin immediately adhering to our own regulations, which restricts the shipment of honey bees up to the 4th zone. Roughly this will restrict you to an area within 600 miles from your originating office,” he wrote.

Peugh did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Monday.

Reginald Wilbanks, president of Wilbanks Apiaries Inc. in Claxton, Ga., ships between 15,000 and 20,000 of these packages. With about 12,000 bees per packages, that’s 240 million bees a year worth $800,000 to $900,000.

He said the problem is that the post office is mishandling the packages, sending them in unventilated trucks and ignoring “This Side Up” labels that keep the syrup from spilling.

“We’ve been shipping bees for 55 years the same way and have not had problems whatsoever. I feel they’re trying to take out internal problems on the shippers,” he said.

He estimates that he’ll lose some $70,000 to $100,000 yearly because of the restriction. Moreover, the agricultural industry could suffer if the bee population falls, and some beekeepers may just give up in frustration, he said.

“They’ll probably put their equipment in a shed out back and forget it. I think there will be fewer bees in the northern states,” he said.

John Atkinson, 73, has raised bees for about 15 years, and now has four hives that he can see out the back window of his house in the town of Harvard.

He said the new shipping policy won’t decimate bee husbandry, but it will be discouraging for bee keepers that aren’t members, as he is, of associations that buy bees together and bring them back privately in trucks.

“They’re just out of luck, really,” he said. “Most people participate in clubs for this very reason, because you can do purchasing as a cooperative. … It’s just another thing that’s very discouraging for people who are raising bees.”