Moving hives and supers without a pickup

**magnet-man** · 03-01-2009, 12:57 PM

I am one of those beekeepers that does not have a truck. I usually borrow the company truck but it is a pain to get and return. I have been thinking of getting one of these guys. I am a little concern with it snapping right off while going down the road. I do have a heavy duty trailer hitch on my car though.

**Fred Bee** · 03-01-2009, 01:05 PM

If you have a trailer hitch on your car...then see if you can invest in a small utility trailer or perhaps borrow one of your friends lawn mower trailers to move a few hives. They work great...just strap your hives down and go!

**magnet-man** · 03-01-2009, 01:10 PM

I have thought about that but you need to get a tag for it and then store it. I was thinking this for tow hives at a time or fill it up with supers. It looks like you could put three rows of boxes on it.

**Ben Brewcat** · 03-01-2009, 01:17 PM

I have one I use for camping... it was inexpensive and rated to 500 lbs. I do worry about torqueing it too much, in spite of the bracing, so I balance it well. But it carries our firewood and some equipment just fine, and we use it as a step into the camper on the truck. It can also be reinforced by ratchet-strapping the rear corners to the stake pockets on the truck (or I suppose the roof if you have a strong rack).

**Cessna180** · 03-01-2009, 01:41 PM

Put them inside your car. I transported mine the in the airplane. No one complained.

**Tom G. Laury** · 03-01-2009, 01:57 PM

Just like the commercial guys, hobbyists can also have adventures moving!

**Joel** · 03-01-2009, 02:15 PM

One of the most important experiances in beekeeping is the purchase and/or building of the the infamous bee truck. Most of us start out hauling bees in our vans or station wagons, eventually we have (or make) something dangerous happen (this works best when the spouse is present) and find an excuse to buy a truck. The 1st. one ususally isn't pretty, It isn't necessarily dependable, but you'll have pictures of it loaded with hives or honey supers, hanging on the wall, right next to the kids, the wife and the grandparents for everyone to see!

Do a search, their all here in photo and word!

"I transported mine the in the airplane. No one complained. "

Dying to hear the rest of this story!

**Cessna180** · 03-01-2009, 02:45 PM

I can just see you haulin those girls in the back seat of the family car. You must be a good talker gettin your wife to help out.
I strapped them together in the airplane with two, not one strap, early in the morning.
I had two hives in the back of the 180 and went to Homer about one hour away. It is kinda awkward getting them in an out cause they are so heavy.
It worked, no one got stung.
Reminds me of a guy that said he would have been here earlier to get a swarm but he went around a corner to fast and two hives feel of the truck in the middle of the intersection.It was back before I keep bees.

It's snowed a foot yesterday.

**sc-bee** · 03-01-2009, 02:48 PM

Most of the carry racks I have seen like above are very sturdy. Good for the weight they are rated at.

The problem I tend to perhaps see is: my supers tend to shift a little, sometimes even when ratcheted down. Of course this is probably an operator error and I am sure you would pay much more attention to detail than I

!

With the rack when I arrive home from my yard the supers most probably would be behind me somewhere down the road

!

**magnet-man** · 03-01-2009, 02:54 PM

OK Joel,

If I understand correctly you are telling me to purchase this thing. Overload it when my wife is with me in the beeyard and make sure it fails driving down the highway. By doing this my wife will give me the blessing to purchase a truck for beekeeping. Am I missing anything?

**iwombat** · 03-01-2009, 04:24 PM

I haul coolers full of salmon on mine. I don't see any issue with hauling a hive or two.

**Joel** · 03-01-2009, 09:11 PM

That's pretty close Magnet
OK, here's how I did it.

Went with a friend, who was in a seperate vehicle (I had a station wagon sans wife) to a remote location which had two of the most dilapitated looking hives you could imagine. The first thing I did was to flatten a tire driving into the woods to load, that only took 20 minutes to change but now it's getting close to dark. After an hour of duct tape, newspaper and screen (I know but it looked really doable in the Keith Delaplane movie) we loaded these monsters (loaded with bees and honey in August) in the back. On the trip home one of the hives shifted. I can assure you there are few things more terrifying than looking at a wave of bees crawling towards you in the back of a station wagon by the light of the radio, except perhaps the look on my wifes face looking at a wave of bees coming towards us in the back of a station wagon. Between swerving while looking back at the bees and flashing my highbeams at my friend to get him to stop I failed to notice the trooper who was following me until his red lights came on. Of course with the eratic driving and flashing my lights he assumed I was having a road rage episode with the guy in front of me and was not real plesant. By now my wife is absolutely beside herself because she even agreed to go on this adventure in the 1st. place. So here we are, a half hour from home, the trooper, my friend, me, my wife and a carload of really unhappy bees along a busy interstate highway.

Today I have 2 one ton trucks, a 1/2 ton truck, a 16 ft trailer and my wife hasn't been on bee trip with me in 10 years.

Need I say more

**Saltcreek** · 03-01-2009, 09:26 PM

you would have to really watch not to overload. A full deep is 90#. A full double is 180# and three hives like mention is 40# overwieght, not counting full supers of honey. I would make sure it was balanced too.
How about removing passenger seats, hives inside and wife rides the rack?

**Galaxy** · 03-01-2009, 09:52 PM

Originally Posted by Saltcreek

you would have to really watch not to overload. A full deep is 90#. A full double is 180# and three hives like mention is 40# overwieght, not counting full supers of honey. I would make sure it was balanced too.
How about removing passenger seats, hives inside and wife rides the rack?

Interesting idea. When I was a teenager, I took the back seat out of a car and hauled a large Hampshire sow hog in the back seat area to a boar about ten miles away to have her bred. If it can be done with a sow, it can be done with bees. After the sow, the car did not smell very well though.

But I think she enjoyed the ride and the visit.

I didn't have a wife at the time and it wasn't my car. Actually, it was the owner of the car that proposed the idea. He was a very good friend.

**Michael Bush** · 03-04-2009, 07:48 PM

I just took the seats out of my mini van.

**rw3212** · 03-04-2009, 08:14 PM

I started moving hives by folding the rear seat in the blazer and loading the cargo area with them. After 2 or 3 trips the wife was searching for a cheap pickup.

**JoeMcc** · 03-06-2009, 08:38 PM

I think im going to go buy this....and a good hand truck

Maybe....

http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/ctd/1059805485.html

JoeMcc

**chillardbee** · 03-07-2009, 12:39 AM

Joel

You make it sound so easy Ha Ha.

**abeeco** · 03-07-2009, 12:53 AM

Joe- not sure if what you are looking for is a trailer to load up as many colonies as possible on, but....I might suggest a trailer with the wheels under the deck. Higher to lift, still more usefull in my humble oppinion. HOWEVER, I did have at one point a trailer like the one you are looking at but where the deck was only 7" off the ground... good= for the hand truck bad= on most beeyard roads