jetsam1

Well, turns out I misunderstood the Doctor as when my wife spoke to him today it turns out I am banned from all heavy lifting for an undetermined amount of time. Turns out I worked too hard and have given myself a really bad case of Tennis Elbow. Hurts like hell and have to see a specialist early next month.

We will have to wait and see exactly what can be done but that pretty much wrecks this year completely unless we can work out a way to lift bee hives without me having to physically lift them. Thinking maybe a modified car workshop lift like they use to remove engines. Stick one on wheels and that could work. Wouldn't know where to start employing help.......

Just one more thing in the catalogue of disasters over the last few years. But I need to be careful as I could easily have another 40 or 50 working years to go.........

Otherwise I need an office job of some kind..... Intensive Hungarian language course and retrain in agriculture (go back to Uni!!). Just as we are close to exchanging contracts on the house very soon too......

wolfi

Jetsam, wish you all the best!
We shouldn't forget that we get older, whether we like it or not ...
Is it so difficult/expensive to get help?
We have an "ezerméster" aka jack of all trades in the neighbourhood who helps for a reasonable pay. He'sgood with machines like chainsaws, mowers and also repairs them or knows where to take them.

GBA77

"But I need to be careful as I could easily have another 40 or 50 working years to go......... "

Wow!!. Not a great start to the new year and with the potential of that long a working life still in front of you I feel for you.

Cant you get some second opinion on that elbow? Depending on your circumstances maybe get a UK /German specialist to look at it? It may cost but at least you have a good second opinion with possibly other options.

If you are used to working outdoors its extremely difficult to work in a office full time but I guess needs must sometimes.

All may not be lost and if you look here you may be able to come up with something that you can make up yourself to assist with the lifting of the beehives.

https://www.google.hu/search?q=picku...Ou9zUXpJRoU1M:

Count me out offering to help - I am allergic to bee stings.

If you cant make up some sort of lift yourself then get the Mrs to do the work under your guidance.

Alternatively then Wolfie's suggestion is not a bad one.

jetsam1

The local Doctor is pretty good and he is sending me to a specialist without any problems so that will hopefully get some idea over what we can do. It was only two years ago I had a large section of my intestine removed in Budapest and I am still not quite right. To sort it out I would accept surgery if it came to it. This year is probably lost anyway. Fortunately we were planning to concentrate on setting ourselves up this year rather than full honey production.

I wouldn't like to go work in an office. But even when I worked on the oil rigs it was essentially sat in front of computer screens 12 hours a day. I might actually have to use my degrees........ Oh dear.....

We were thinking about some form of lifting machine prior to this as when you have lots of hives all those little lifts add up.... The link you (GBA77) put up is pretty close to what I was envisaging but I would look to get our friend to make up a metal frame that we could attach wheels and a towing attachment so it could be moved easily. There are a couple of people locally who would be happy to help out but there will be a lot of work and they have jobs of their own!

Yep only 35 and all that football and martial arts are coming back to get me looks like. Frustrating that another year might pass me by. My wife is the qualified bee keeper/horticulturalist/agriculturalist so she tells me what to do!

scrubbedexpat142

Gosh, that's really bad luck! Afraid I can't offer any positive suggestions, other than to wish you well.

scrubbedexpat0105

I would take the route of looking at jigs and other innovative tools to do the heavy lifting, like the one you've already thought of.

I'm an office type and not at all strong, and I've moved twice in the last few years with very little help (all of my friends seem to be much stronger but to have bad backs!). I often had to figure out ways of lifting/moving heavy furniture etc. on my own. With technique and improvised tools/jigs there's a lot you can do.

jetsam1

Just thinking off the top of my head, I was wondering about putting hooks on the front and back of each box and using a hand operated hydrualic lift arm and a chain pulley to pull up the boxes. This would be smooth enough not to upset the bees too much and not so heavy that it couldn't be pushed up and down. We would need to use it conjunction with a waist height platform to swap around the frames etc. A trailer and the van could take the full boxes to the extractor. The only point where it has to be manual lifting is moving the boxes from that trailer into the workshop. But then, I will have to speak to someone who knows about these things.

I should be an office type, even though as I trained in Geology I have had my fair share of wet hills.......... Most of my contemporaries are pHDs, seems to just have been me to go down this particular path... Oh well, one more problem year to have to explain to the Hungarian government next year.......

Our plan was to essentially do River Cottage so I need to save up for a small tractor now.

I always thought tennis elbow was just like a little twinge some people got after too much gentle gardening upon retirement. I am rather sad to be educated that this is very far from the case.

scrubbedexpat142

Hivebarrow - The Apiarist

Or Weetabix for the OH!

jetsam1

Ah well, if I need to rest up so much I can apply to the Universtiy of Szeged's Intensive Hungarian Language course. Two full time academic semesters over Autumn and Winter. So outside the beekeeping season too.

Probably a good use of my time!

GBA77

You may have seen this already. I am sure the lift/hoist can be modified to suit your needs, and wont cost that much to build/make. However there still seems to be a fair amount of work for the elbows.


If the hive falls apart when its full of bees (or something breaks and the hive drops) omg I would not like to be anywhere near you.

GMC girl

Sad to hear you are incapacitated, not a good start to the new year & new home. We too have had a major setback 2 weeks ago, our daughter, who is in the merchant navy & hoping to get back to the North sea asap, had a very nasty accident with a chop saw when cutting firewood. She was lucky not to lose her arm but has cut from ring finger to elbow & has major tendon damage.

Not the start to a young woman's career any of us had foreseen. She too is busy learning Hungarian to pass the time.

Hope you get some help locally but sadly we are too far away to be of use.

fidobsa

Why not get a trailer with a built in crane you could use at both locations? I have seen such trailers used by people who deliver firewood logs but possibly that would be a bit OTT as they are lifting quite heavy loads. Possibly the car engine hoist idea would be the way to go but mount it on the trailer in a way that you can use it for all the heavy lifting.

Peter_in_Hungary

Trailers are OK for supers but not very good for transporting bees as the suspension on most trailers is too hard and will shake them up too much. Most bee keepers use flat bed trucks to move bees.

One approach could be to take some empty honey frames to the hives and exchange the full frames one by one for empty frames (a couple of extra supers would help this). In this way you will only be lifting frames not supers.

Its would probably be an idea to plan not to move the hives this year, but keep them in one place as moving the hive location is the heavy work, but this will cost some honey production.

Do you have enough hives? If not you could spent the season creating new bee families to inhabit the hives you can also build.

You can import commercial vehicles much cheaper than passenger vehicles as commercial vehicles don't have the import duty as applied to passenger vehicles. Also as a bee keeper you can claim back the road tax and some other expenses for a vehicle used for bee keeping.

If the route between your home and the bees is not on made up roads but dirt tracks then not many Hungarians would bother having a street legal vehicle i.e. no tax, MOT or insurance, but this is not strictly allowed.

If you are going to use a (road legal) trailer then if you don't envisage using it for distances you can put it on a red number plate which makes it an agricultural trailer which is exempt weight tax and has a 5 year MOT interval. Down side is that you have a speed restriction (either 25kph or 40kph I can't remember which).

GBA77

"You can import commercial vehicles much cheaper than passenger vehicles as commercial vehicles don't have the import duty as applied to passenger vehicles. "

Hmmmmmm! Interesting.

duztee

Note: 4x4 pick-ups are classed as commercial vehicles, and as stated do not pay import duty.