At 03:29 PM 1/17/98 -0400, you wrote:
>The local commercial outfit I sometimes work for uses large flat-bed trucks
>(1-1.5 ton?) for bringing in the crop.
>
>The beds on these trucks are about 5 feet off the ground, at least,
>requiring one person to stay up there and stack the supers onto the
>pallets.  (As the day goes by the height of the truck bed seems to
>increase, as the supers get "heavier!")
>
>This is okay, if there is always an "extra" person available, besides those
>carrying supers from the hives.  I think we get something like 250 mediums
>on one load.  The stacks are rolled off into the honey house with a hand
>truck.
>
>Another local NY guy, with a smaller operation, tows a low trailer instead,
>behind a smaller truck.  This way he can load the supers right onto the
>trailer, with a minumum of lifting upwards.  (Plus the trailer can be
>detatched and left wherever.)  I believe he wheels the stacks off with a
>hand-truck as well.
>
>Anyway, can anyone offer any other points in favor of a trailer, vs. a
>pickup or other bed-truck?  Besides the slight complications in driving, I
>wonder if anyone has found this to be a better arrangement, at least on a
>sideliner-scale.
>
>My pickup has a permanently frozen tailgate, so I have fun lifting the
>supers over the sides.  Fortunately it is a small truck (not full size
>pickup) so it isn't too bad.
>
>Best regards and thanks for any input,
>
>JG
>
>
Jerry J. Bromenshenk, Ph.D.
Director, DOE/EPSCoR & Montana Organization for Research in Energy
The University of Montana-Missoula
Missoula, MT  59812-1002
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel:  406-243-5648
Fax:  406-243-4184