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Nearly cooked four nucs moving them in an enclosed trailer — ventilation lessons the hard way

Confession time so nobody repeats this. Moved four 5-frame nucs about 90 minutes to an outyard on Tuesday. Screened their entrances shut, loaded them in my enclosed cargo trailer around 9am, figured the trailer shade would keep them cooler than the open truck bed. It did not. Hit stop-and-go traffic, no airflow, and when I opened the trailer two of the nucs had bees pouring sweat — clusters broken down, bees fanning frantically at the screens, one had started to slump a patch of new comb. Got lucky: soaked them with a water mist, drove the last leg with the doors bungeed half open, and everyone survived. A commercial guy told me after that closed box trucks kill more bees than winter does. What's the right setup? Screened tops instead of just screened entrances? Night moves only? AC?
#transport#nuc#ventilation#overheating
▲ 18 votes 💬 3 replies
3 replies
AbejaMiguel · Jun 19, 2026
The killer detail people miss: a confined colony can't do evaporative cooling without airflow, and their own metabolic heat cooks them from the inside — it does not need to be a hot day. My rules from ten years of moving bees in Jalisco heat: full screened tops (way more area than an entrance screen), move at night or first light, never stop moving for long, and carry a garden sprayer of water — a wet screen buys you 20 minutes in a pinch. You already discovered that last one under pressure.
muglabalci · Jun 19, 2026
I migrate hundreds of hives to the pine forests every year and it's always at night, always with open mesh floors AND screened tops, and we do not close the truck sides no matter the weather. Airflow is the whole game — a moving open truck in 35° is safer than a parked closed trailer in 25°. If you must use that trailer, cut vents high and low so it convects while parked.
SourwoodGrace · Jun 19, 2026
Thanks y'all. Ordered screened inner covers for every nuc box I own, and the trailer's getting two louvered vents this weekend. Next move happens at 5am with the water sprayer riding shotgun. Cheap lesson at the price of one slumped comb — could've been four dead nucs.
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