July 26, 2022. First light in the Brazoria County yard. One bee is already in the air. The rest are still in the box. The hive sits on an IBC tote cage with a pallet on top and a strap around the stack. The truck crane is there because a deep plus supers is not a box you should be muscling onto a four-foot stand.
Why the tote
Wooden crate stands lasted about three seasons here. Humidity, rain, and Gulf Coast sun took them apart. A full hive is easy money in weight — three boxes and you are looking at a couple hundred pounds before you know it. I needed something cheap that would not fold.
The answer was sitting in a pile on the side of the road: IBC tote cages. Steel grid, about four feet up, air under the bottom board. Fire ants have to work for it. Grass does not grow into the entrance as fast. Rain runs off instead of wicking into wood. That cage in the photo is the stand. The pallet is just the deck.
Why the crane
The crane is not fancy. A boom, a winch, a strap. It keeps my back in the game. You can build the nicest stand in the county and still wreck yourself lifting wet supers onto it. I would rather look like a farmer with a truck than a beekeeper with a brace.
Standbot is me trying to make more of this yard work mechanical — inspection support, stands that last, less of the heavy stupid jobs. That morning it was still just me, the truck, and the girls.
What the picture is really saying
If you keep bees on the Gulf Coast, get the hive off the ground. Then figure out how you will lift the next hundred pounds without becoming the weak link. The bee in the air is already on the clock. So am I.
More from this yard: month-by-month work, the stands that failed, and the photo gallery.
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