Hi Bob,

    I purchased a used Bee Boom 16 years ago and have always hooked it
directly up to the truck battery. The Bee Boom itself has a couple of
solonoids up by it's motor and they must sort everything out because I've
never had any trouble with it. The only weak point on my model is the 4 way
wire coupler that runs power to the pick-up carriage. It tends to corrode
the wires off which can break free and close the switch. For this reason I
always disconnect the positive cable to the battery when the Bee Boom is
not in use.

   For the uninitiated I will mention a bit about using these machines. My
carriage has forks that slide underneath a hive's bottom board. If for some
reason you stumble and happen to let a hive slip off the carriage in mid
flight, the forks will spring skyward as the weight of the hive is
released, giving the departing edge of the bottom board a sproing into the
air thus flipping the hive upside down. This is never a happy moment for
the bees or the beekeeper ( welcome to hell, here's your hive loader) but
the bee boom probably gets a kick out of it. This can be avoided with
practise but usually occurs on some hot sticky night in a yard that a bear
has been bothering.

  Things can also get complicated when your bee yard is on a slope,
something that is hard to avoid in this part of the country. My unit has a
leveling device, but it's so hard to adjust I never bother. The trick when
operating on a slope is to always make sure you are down hill from the bee
hive as you swing down to the truck. With heavy hives this is a lot like
sumo-wrestling in the moonlight and you have to do a lot of fancy foot work
to keep the upper hand.

  I always make sure my boom is fastened when travelling. I know a
beekeeper who had the end of his boom come loose while he was crossing a
bridge. It swung into the front of an oncoming tractor-trailer unit and was
knocked into the drink. The beekeeper said he knew something was wrong
because as the semi approached he could see the driver's eyes growing wide
with fright. The Bee Boom was fished out of the water and still works fine.

Ted