By Paul Kelly
One of the best uses of my time in the last ten years was building a flat bed wheelbarrow on the chassis of a purchased two wheeled wheelbarrow. I bought the wheelbarrow on sale for $99 at Canadian Tire. We already had a single wheeled flatbed wheelbarrow but it’s tippy when loaded. The conversion to a flat bed was pretty simple; anyone with basic carpentry skills could make their own version. Just be sure to make the front rack 90 degrees to the bed and the dimensions to suit bee boxes. I think you’ll find it worth the effort and expense to make one for yourself. We use the wheelbarrow daily in the bee yard, shed, and honey house. It is particularly helpful in our home bee yard where we have 100 hives in several groups.
In many cases using the wheelbarrow is more efficient than using a truck since we can load it inside the storage shed and deliver the bee escapes, queen excluders, supers etc. directly to each hive. We also use ours as a mobile elevated work station, and to harvest honey from a few colonies when necessary. In a small apiary you can harvest your honey without ever lifting a full super! Just brush the bees off each frame and transfer them to an empty super on the wheelbarrow. It takes very little storage space when parked upright. The only hitch in using it is to avoid crossing side slopes when loaded. As you can see in the picture heavy loads are no problem.
Originally Published in the Ontario Bee Journal
