> In the minds of the insurance providers, moving barrels with a two 
wheel cart is not as safe as moving barrels on a pallet.

In my mind, too.

Moving full honey drums weighing ~700 lbs is not a job for the slow, 
weak, or careless, or a job to do with people close nearby.  That said, 
we often see several workers loading a trailer, each with a 2-wheel 
dolly.  To survive, they need to have eyes in the back of their heads, a 
quick step and a distrustful attitude.

Move enough drums and someone will eventually drop one, hopefully not on 
herself or someone nearby.  Count on it.  Load 60+ drums into a trailer, 
load after load, with some drums being a bit bent or badly fastened, and 
one will slip.

Expect it and be ready.  If the honey is liquid, the lid  may well gap 
and spill honey.  Drums walls are quite soft under the impact of 700 
liquid lbs on a solid floor.  So are feet.  Drums roll, too. You don't 
want to be in the way.

Moving drums on sloping surfaces can be a dangerous job, and drums do 
slip occasionally.  Even  experienced barrel movers drop drums, 
especially when using an unfamiliar drum dolly.

There are many different sorts of dollies (barrel trucks) around, 
including homemade antiques.  Some are excellent and reasonably safe 
when used carefully, others, not so much.  Dollies never really wear out 
and no beekeeper ever throws one out no matter how tricky it might be.  
It just goes to the back of the shop and lurks there until it sees new 
life after an auction or is pressed into service when the good one(s) 
are elsewhere.

Beekeepers tend to get pretty comfortable with drums, but for most 
people, drums are intimidating.  Some of us who are big enough and 
experienced casually twirl full upright drums across a room on a bottom 
edge with nothing but our own hands -- no cart.  It is actually quite 
easy once the barrel is bucked up onto the bottom edge and balanced, as 
long as the floor is level and a hard surface -- and as long as the 
bottom drum edge is not severely bent up.

As for the broken barrel movers mentioned, I am wondering if they were 
the type shown here: http://morsedrum.com/products/drum-cradles.htm  -- 
rather than the sort shown here: 
http://morsedrum.com/products/2-Wheel-Drum-Trucks.htm#152

The former are not really for moving drums, but rather for tipping them 
so a tap can be used to drain them.  The latter are what commercial 
beekeepers use when they move drums by hand.

_We need be aware that a full honey drum weighs ~700 lbs rather than 
~500 for water, or ~400 for oils and fuels_.

Some of the devices designed for drums of these other substances are 
almost twice overloaded handling honey, so the proper equipment must be 
selected to avoid damage to equipment and injury to workers.

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