I moved two TBhives today in my pickup. It was an adventure on several levels.
1. We saw a big feral boar near the hives, and that's always a little bit exciting.
He moved away, though, so it was not a problem.
2. I built the hives with a screen bottom. I wanted to use 1/8" hardware cloth, but all the hardware stores have gone to pre-bundled rolls of hardware cloth and the smallest they have is 1/4". Later I bought out the last of 1/8" from a big hardware store, but when I built the hives I put two layers of 1/4" on so they are offset a little. Guess what? The bees go through it easily. So when I screened the entrance, bees were still going in and out through the bottom. Well, I built in provision for a fiber board bottom for wintertime, so I slid that in. It looked like a lot of the bees didn't know how to find the entrance - they wanted in through the bottom. We finally gave up and just took the hive with bees clustering on the bottom screen.
3. It is HOT. I kept the hives in the shade as much as I could, but when I left the farm I had about a mile or more to go on rough, dirt roads. I took it nice and slow to avoid stress to the comb, knowing all the time that they were getting hot.
I arrived at home with the hives 2 hours later to find that a few topbars (fortunately without comb) had worked loose from the hot duct tape and fallen inside the hive. I opened the entrance right up and the bees poured out and bearded all over the front. I should have taken a photo, but I didn't.
Two hours later, I watched bees coming in with their pollen baskets crammed full of pollen and they were busy as little bees.
It is dark now. Some of the bees are still hanging in a clump from the bottom screen under the hive entrance but all seems well. It's hard to focus when it's dark, but here is a shot of the cluster under the entrance:
Bee Cluster
Incidentally, my bro-in-law and I each have one hive in our back yard, now. It was breaking the bank to drive that big pickup so far to the farm every week to check on bees (not that the bees NEED it). We still have a hive out there, and a feral hive in a tree that we will extract bees from now and then. Also, we have 8 swarm lure boxes hanging in trees. The bees out there are bringing in loads of nice, light honey right now. I'm not sure what they are finding, although there are still sweet clover plants out there with a few blooms. Here in town they will find plenty of yummy flowers, I'm sure.