We have a crane type lift that sits in the bed of one of our trucks where I
work, the crane cost $175.00 from Northern Tool, it is in a Ford F150 4x4.
It has some draw backs, it will lift 1,500 LBS but with the arm extend it
can only handle 1,000 LBS, a beehive has always been with in it's limit
though, a riding lawn mower wasn't.. It has a short chain that attaches to
what ever you are lifting and you pump it by hand to raise the object so you
need to have a hive secured in a way that you can lift it from the center
top, we use homemade large steel tongs that fit into the handles of the
lowest box that went to a  tripod we were using before the crane. The crane
needs a steel plate under the bed to keep it from twisting the bed that it
did not come with so it was an added expense to have one made $25.00 and we
had the crane installed at a body shop $150.00. So far it has not been used
as much as we thought it would because we have stopped moving so many hives.
We now have apiaries that stay put all year round, less work but less honey.
One problem is you need to either have the truck right next to the beehive
or the beehive right next to the truck (which means you are still moving the
hive) the arm doesn't reach out very far. Also it sticks up so far the truck
doesn't fit in the garage so it has to come on and off to garage the truck
in the winter, I am in Maine lots of snow.

We have never had a hive to tall that the crane could not get it over the
tail gate but that could happen if you tried to move a hive with a lot of
supers on. If I was to get some thing for my truck it would be the hydraulic
tail gate, I find the crane is not useful for loading equipment I would
rather have something that would get things up into the truck with out my
back being the thing doing it all the time. So nice for moving hives but not
good for loading supers to go out into the yards, added work hooking them up
and pumping the hydraulic handle to get them up on the truck so you still
would a lot of lifting with a crane.

Karen T-K

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