I am officially getting out of the package bee business.... I have made my last run.

It was something I contemplated last fall when the producers sent me the price lists for 2014, but I decided to give it one more go as I already had a deposit down on 1000 packages. As winter progressed into spring sales were way down from previous years which I attributed to the price increases that I had to pass on to my customers, or people just procrastinate to the last second. Things really picked up about the second week of April and I am still getting calls for packs now that I am done for the year. At any rate my cost per pack increased $10.00 each and to be fair I ended up eating part of the increase on my end figuring I could hope for no more price increases in the next year or two and I can slowly edge my margins back up.

I ordered a new trailer custom built for package transportation with a GVWR of 9990 Lbs. After blowing out multiple tires and breaking an axle on the trailer last season I decided that unless I had a new trailer I wasn't going to do it at all. The thought crossed my mind to just rent a truck in GA instead of buying a new trailer and in hindsight I should have gone that route.

The trip down to GA was uneventful. I picked up the new trailer on May 5th at 9 am and was sitting in Baxley waiting to be loaded by 10:30. It was sunny and 90 degrees so we opted to wait until about 4 pm to start loading. The packages went on the new trailer in record time and by 5:30 we were headed north towards Augusta. I drove straight through the night with plans to arrive around 2 pm on the 6th. We left GA, crossed SC and NC without incident and then picked up I-77. The climb up into the Shenandoah really made it so I could feel the load behind me, but we took it slow and steady until we hit I-81 where we were able to pick up the speed a little. Mile after mile zipped by... by 4 am I was exhausted and pulled into a truck stop to get a few minutes of shut eye. By 4:45 we were back on the road and making tracks for the short stretch through Maryland and West Virginia. I stopped right before the PA line to fuel up, with the trailer loaded the truck was only getting about 5 mpg, so the gas bill was really starting to rack up.

We crossed into PA around 8:30 am and started to come into some traffic around Carlisle. At one point I was slowing down and went to put my foot back on the gas and the truck just died... I coasted to the side of the road in front of the Military Academy. I cranked the engine and nothing. I pulled out the phone and started searching for wrecker services in the area when the Highway Patrol pulled in behind us. I explained the situation with the bees being on the trailer and they were reluctant to alow me to run a generator to power fans on the side of the road. The first wrecker service I called didn't have equipment that could handle my truck and trailer, but they referred me to another company. The second company said they would put me on the list and they could get to me in 4-5 hrs. I told them forget it. I asked the police if they had a wrecker company they used and they made the call.. 10 minutes later a roll back pulled up, we disconnected from the trailer and he hauled both my truck and trailer off of the highway at once which was a relief. The driver wanted to know where I wanted to be taken and looked at me funny when I told him the nearest Walmart.

He dropped me in the Walmart lot in Mechanicsburg and I went in and cleaned out their Ice Chest and iced down the load. I also grabbed a can of starting fluid and gave the air intake a shot and the truck fired up for a minute and sputtered out.... Dang Fuel Pump. And of course the fuel tank has 30 gallons of fuel in it to complicate things.... After thinking things through I decided there was no easy fix sitting here so I called Penske to see if they had a rental available. $900.00 and an hr later and they had a truck sitting in the Walmart lot and we were moving the packages out of the trailer and into the rental. That only took 5 hrs for two of us to do and I now had nearly 100 K worth of bees in a completely un-ventilated truck. I have a cargo net for this very reason and strapped the rear door up, stretched the net across the rear door and shoveled the ice onto the load.

By 5 pm we were on the road again with the bees, but had to leave the truck and trailer behind. The rest of the trip was uneventful in that we stayed on the road and arrived in CT at 9 pm. I unloaded a couple hundred packs and headed for VT. By the time I arrived I had been awake for pretty much 35 hrs and I had to get up and unload the rest of the bees in just two hrs. All things considered the packages looked good. I had a few issues with dead queens, but had extras on hand to replace those. I also had an unprecedented number of people who just din't show up. So while I would have normally hung around and made some calls to get them their packages I was runny short on sleep and even shorter on patience. I loaded the leftover packages into my car, left the truck which did not need to be turned in for a few more day and headed for home.

I made it back to CT about 8:30pm on May 7th, took a quick shower and went to bed. After sleeping on it I decided that the best option would be for me to hire a shop to replace the fuel pump on the truck. I made some calls and got quotes from 900.00-1200 plus towing to get it there. I loaded up my Honda civic with every tool I thought I might need and on May 9th at 4 am I left for Mechanicsburg Pa. I arrived at about 9 am and stopped at Napa to get a fuel pump and a means to transfer 30 gal of fuel out of the tank. They sold me a hand pump and after fooling with that for an hr and not getting anywhere... I threw it away and bought a 12 vt fuel transfer pump. Once the fuel was out the tank dropped pretty easily and the pump swap went well. I got it all done in just under 7 hrs at a cost of about $250.00. I hooked back onto the trailer, loaded the car, strapped her down and headed for home. I was glad this week was over. I just had a few more packs to call people about and that was it, I was done. I called my retailers and let them know that I would not be transporting packages next year. One told me to think about it for a week or two and maybe I would change my mind....

So here I am a week later and I have no more desire to haul a load of bees than a did a week ago. The prices go up and up, the quality of the packs certainly isn't getting better and in some cases I have seen they appear to be getting worse. People buy packs and know when they need to be picked up and yet fail to do so.... then they want you to bend over backwards to get their bees to them or refund their money. The risks are high, the rewards getting smaller and smaller...

I had a Production company approach me last fall about doing a TV show on my package run... After talking with them for about an hr they said they didn't think there was enough excitement in the trip to hold an audience and wanted to know if I knew anybody I could compete against to make the "show" more entertaining. I think these trips are all the entertainment I can handle just they way they are.

So there it is... I little insight into the life of a package dealer/hauler.... Don't call me for packs next year, and whoever you get to haul the... Buy them a Beer This time next year I think I will go fishing.