Good young queens are great, so try to have them in place, if you can. Making sure you don't need to travel to feed too much is good too, so leaving plenty of stores with the assumption it will be a poor period ahead. Try to have everything that you might need cleverly selected and placed into totes that are in your car when you need them. Try to always take them. In the vehicle should also be the usual larger suspects like a queen excluder, frames, ropes, floor, box and lid.
Sorry Apple, yes, Italian those. I pass no judgment upon them other than they are yellow and are scared of me, staying calmly on the frames during inspections and melting like butter down into the hive when I blow on them.
You're right, Mark, and driving right up to bees is best, as the practical Donald Sims wrote so eloquently in 60 Years with Bees. Sims ran only out-apiaries, often hundreds of miles from home, and described his methods in one of the best beekeeping books written. The book has a couple of photos of Sims' Volvo 240 right next to hives in a field.
but nobody points and laughs if you're driving down the road
That's what I was thinking of re storage. I have something similar at home that I use for acetic acid sterilisation of combs. Takes 4 brood boxes. Thanks for the link
Strange to say that it's coveted quite regularly, especially by younger types and more so if it's got a pallet on the roof rack.
I have two of this one's big brother - picked them up second hand for not a lot of money. They will take two piles of supers next to each other with a bit of room to spare for other odd bits of kit around them:
The Midi can also take two piles, although with less space around for other odd bits, but if space or cost are a concern it's a good bit of kit. You can definitely stack supers 6-high, possibly 7. I had 2 complete hives (floor, 14x12 brood, QE, 3 supers, crown board, roof) next to each other in mine.
I Picked my two up from Gumtree for £20 and £25 respectively.. I had to do a bit of a repait on one hinge and drill a few new screw holes on one but nothing to get excited about. The other got strapped intact onto the roof bars on my estate car ... looked a bit like a shed on wheels but it came home safely.
