Pretty neat little hive moving lift!!! Europeans have the coolest toys!!

[Acebird]

The front end does get light when I pick up two heavy hives I learned the hard way you can't just drive straight up the ramp on the trailer with the last two hives.

So as designed it is not stable. Moving the operators position would help. In this case I would not remove counter balance weight because the vehicle is not stable in the first place.
How much weight are you intending to lift? When you are moving it is best to have the load as low as possible. When you get to where you are going stop, lift to the height that you need and creep to the unload position.
For what you have right now with the ride on mower deck it might be helpful to mount a pallet roller on the front of the forks so if the vehicle tips the rollers will prevent the forks from digging into the ground or tipping too far.

Good luck with your next project. The zero turn mower will have all the counter balance you need and that better viewing angle.

[BeeGhost]

Acebird, I'm assuming he was loading the trailer from the side and then attempted to load the last two hives and the forklift up the ramps and onto the trailer for transport. In that case, the vertical drive up the ramp and then over the pivot point onto the trailer changed the fulcrum point and being that most of the weight was on the front of the lift as he stated, of course it would tip. It would do the same with anything that had a load. On flat ground the only way it would tip is if it was over loaded or the boom was in the air on a sudden stop or a sharp turn with the boom in the loading position. It's known as the triangle of stability.

[Acebird]

Or he took off too fast. Inertia works in both directions. With the forks in the rear it is hard to tell what direction is forward on this vehicle.

[johng]

Beeghost is right. My son was driving the forklift, I was shutting the farmers gate and my son went ahead and drove up the ramp on the trailer about half way up the ramp it tipped back. We never drive it with the hives picked up any more than necessary so it could not tip up any further than the forks would let it. These were pretty heavy hives one deep with two supers coming off the fall flow. The little winch will pick up a lot more than the front end can take. It has its limitations, it was made as a way so I could move my hives by myself and it works for that. I also put my wife's plants on a pallet and move them in and out of the green house during the winter so it does come in handy for other stuff too.