Need suggestions on moving hive

[arthur]

Someone tell me how they think this plan will go.

Truck will be about 20 feet from hive. Hive is 4 supers.

At nightfall place screen in opening. Smoke. Take off cover. Set aside supers. Place brood box + bottom in truck over strap. Then move other 3 supers one by one into place. Put cover on. Strap over hive. Staple. Strap in bed. Drive 20 miles.

Then remove piece by piece out of bed. Walk 50 feet or so with components of hive, taking it apart. Put back together in dark.

I'm scared the bees will be going crazy at this point as I have the hive apart. What say ye?

The hive will be too heavy to lift out the truck by itself.

[Beeslave]

If they are really strong you are going to have a mess especially when you go to unload them, in the dark with a light. It would be better to have 2 people and or a cart or wagon. Strap the hive together, tip onto wagon, pull to truck, tip off wagon(upright) next to tailgate, tip onto tailgate, grab bottom and push onto truck then upright for driving down the road. Better yet take the honey supers off after driving the bees out during the day, come that night and load into truck and move then put supers back on the next day(if the are heavy extract them out first.

[WayneW]

I would do whatever i could to keep the hive(s) in one piece. Near dark, smoke them in pretty good, and screen the entrance. Staple or use a ratchet type strap to hold the stack in one piece. Use a handtruck and a ramp to move the hive to and from the truck. That should work quite well. Taking the hive apart in the dark is a BAD idea. At night bees will crawl, not fly so much, leading to bees up the pant legs, in the socks, and god knows were.

Good luck at whatever you try, just bee careful.

[arthur]

the problem is that I don't have another person. Esp. for getting it out of the truck.

I smell a fiasco coming.

[arthur]

I do have a wheelbarrow. Let's see, staple it together while on the stand. Somehow get it into the wheelbarrow. Then lift it into the truck. Then reverse process.

I have a handtruck, but at least the wheelbarrow keeps it off the ground and I wouldn't have to lift as much.

However, I can imagine it all tipping out of the wheelbarrow with my luck.

[rwlaw]

Hey Art, when I put my hives up I made 2x6 frames for them to set on. Had to move them so I put 3" 3/8th eye bolts in the frames two on each side, put em in so you get all wood. I went w/ 3/4" black pipe by 4' long. Slip through the eyes and your good to go. Stopper up the entrance after dark, strap em down. With em all buttoned up and six pack you can't bribe somebody to help?
P.S. Had to work late one nite, got home after dark, pulled the entrance feeder to fill it, and I reeeally thought God was mad me for a second!

[Beeslave]

Unless you are a true redneck with big tires and a lift on your truck you should be able to tip the hive against tailgate and pick up from bottom and slide into truck on its back side. Maybe go to the local watering hole and offer a 12er to the local drunk to give you a hand.

[beyondthesidewalks]

I would rob the supers off the hive as a separate operation. Then you have only the hive to move. Once the hive is moved you can put the supers back on. The only problem with this is how strong is the hive. Many times after I rob all of the supers off a hive the bees have no place to go and beard the front of the hive. That would also make it hard to move them. Could you either start antoher hive with a frame of eggs or do you have a nuc with a queen. You can move the hive during the day and let most of the foragers join another hive. Then you'd have to move two hives but they'd both be less numerous and easier to move.

[Martin]

I had to do this not that long ago same thing but only 3 supers and they were full, I ended up doing it this way

Take the top super off and place it on a base plate I made mine so that there was a screen in the center of the floor, now I lowered the top super on the plate screen is facing downward , strapped together real good did the same for the 2nd super and took them to a shady place

The main box of the hive I place a spare lid and strapped it down leaving the entrance open this allowed any stragglers to come home to I than closed the hatch on them giving me 3 fully sealed supers if you like and moving one at a time into the back of the truck was no problem

Next day I simply did everything in reverse.

Worked for me

Cheers Martin

[beecron]

I am agreeing with separating the supers first and just preparing them for extraction. Maybe put an empty or two on top before you strap everything together. That should remove a lot of weight for you and make room for the excess bees. Do all of that the day before then screen them in at night. If you're talking four full supers plus the brood chamber and all, I'm guessing 225-250 pounds? That would be a heft into a pickup!

[USCBeeMan]

Think outside of the box. Has 4 supers. How many brood boxes? Let's say you have a total of 6 boxes.

Get 2 more SBBs and 2 sheets of plywood that are 16 3/8 x 20 1/8.
Take the top 2 supers off and put on a SBB.
Immediately staple the entrance shut with screen mesh.
Put the piece of plywood on the top and strap it all down.
Repeat the process for the next 2 supers.
Staple entrance shut on the original SBB with screen mesh. Put IC/and cover on top of the brood box(es).

Leave them till the next morning.
Take to new site.
Reverse the process described above.

Bees will be fine.

[Michael Bush]

I'd go out before dark and move them a box at a time onto the truck. Then wait for dark and they will settle back down in the hive on the truck. Then close them up and go.

[CentralPAguy]

I moved about 14 hives this year by myself. However, I only had to concern myself with 1 Deep and 1 Shallow Super for each of the hives.

I had spare bottom boards and spare inner covers. In the evening, I split the deep and shallow super from each other. I didn't concern myself about which bees were in the supers or in the deep.

I put a bottom board, the deep and the inner cover together. Sometimes I stapled screened wire over the hole in the inner cover; other times, I used Duct Tape and taped over the hole. I drilled two holes in the inner cover and screwed the inner cover to the deep. After I had that operation completed, I then put two straps which I pulled tight around the bottom board, hive body and inner cover. I did not staple the hive to the bottom board.

I did the same with the shallow super. I then stacked the shallow super on top of the deep in order to allow the bees to finish foraging for the day.

At night, when all the bees were in the hive, I smoked the bottom board entrances in order to force the bees into the hive body and then jammed a wet wash cloth/dish towel into the entrance on the bottom board with my hive tool. I did the same to the shallow super.

I then moved the bees to the new location. I did not have any problems and moved them about 10 miles in my SUV. There were a few bees that got out
though. I need to tell you that I wore my bee suit while driving my car to the new location.

No stings -- I then rebuilt the hives at theie new location using my headlights of my car. This way, they weren't without their queen very long.

This system worked beautiful for me.

[arthur]

Largely uneventful.

Late evening, I carried each super, one by one to truck. Then put it altogether and strapped it up. Screen over opening.

I was lazy and decided not to staple the boxes together.

Drove 25 miles. I then tipped the hive upside down into a wheelbarrow, and then tipped it back up onto a stand. This was the frightening moment--the top super came apart from the hive, ajar, and I was worried bees would come pouring out. Not many bees came out. Managed to get the hive on the stand, get the super straightened out, took the strap off, removed screen cover over opening.

If I were to do it again, I would staple and try to use more than one strap. And bring a fellow beek to help carry.