I remember in the 1980’s when I was hauling honey bees, personal equipment, and supplies, for a very large bee farmer in Sunnyside, WA. For names sake we will call him Bill.

We used to haul Bill's bees all over the ten western states, and to do this we used semi trucks. Bill and I got along real good as he loved to skirt the law just as tight as he could. When all the other beekeepers were stacking their trucks three pallets high with bees, Bill would go four, because we were allowed fourteen feet high, and the scale would not hold up a bee truck for being over weight after the sun came up.

I was driving Bill's 1978 Peterbilt with a one hundred fifty inch wheel base and a Double walk in sleeper. It was root beer brown with a yellow cream color underlay. This truck was absolutely beautiful with a 503 Detroit v-12, and five hundred thirty horse power to the ground. Needless to say, this truck would get you in trouble.

I had just made a run to South Dakota and was coming back to Turlock, CA. empty for another load, and I made my check call at Redding, CA., and discovered that Bill was broke down in Corning, CA., with his two axle Pete. He told me that he needed me to hook onto his set of doubles.

It sounds pretty easy until you stop and think that I was pulling a forty five foot flatbed, and stretched out I was three inches too long. Bill was pulling a set of twenty eight foot flatbeds. That's fifty six feet plus the four foot dolly in the middle.

I stretched out my fifth wheel, and dropped my forty-five footer, and hooked onto the twenty-eights. I looked like a freight train, but I knew if I could cross the Oregon line I was legal from there on.

We headed north hoping to get to the Oregon border in the dark, but we didn’t get too far because they had the Cottonwood scale open. The only road around it had a jump scale set up on it, so I pulled into the rest area. Bill said, “what are you doing?” I said, “sleeping.”

The next morning about nine or ten, the sun was starting to get hot, and the bees were starting to fly. I checked on the scale and they were still open. I caught my log book up and said, "lets go.”

We pulled out of the rest area and headed down towards the scale house. I got on the radio and told the other drivers, “if you don’t like bees, better roll your windows up.” I took the scale exit and told everyone on the radio, “brake check”, and I hit my brakes really hard while I was far enough away so the scales couldn't see what I was doing. I hit my brakes three or four times and the bees looked like a black cloud around my truck.

I drove up on the scale, looked in the window, and they had this little gal working; and the old guy that usually ran the scale was standing back and talking to someone. She hit the red light, and the door opened on the shack; then this guy came towards the truck with a tape measure in his hand. The bees began to cover him up. I don’t think he realized it was a bee truck until he got outside.

He took his hat off and then his shirt. He ran back inside, turned on the green light, and waved me off the scale; so I left. I drove down I-5 a few miles when this D.O.T. cop pulled up behind me. His red light raised up but didn't come on.

The red light went back down and the cop pulled into the left lane, and slowly drove forward. He got up to the cab of the truck and slowly creeped back down behind me.

The red light went back up and stayed a few seconds, and then went back down. The cop drove into the left lane again, and right up to the cab of the truck. He bent down so I can see him, and gave me the bird, and left. I told Bill, "it better be a long time before I go back through Northern California."

By: James Grimes
5/7/09

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