Adding Vents to Cool an Enclosed Trailer for Transporting Honey Bees

Question:

I am looking at an enclosed trailer to haul a large number of honey bee packages. The packages cage 16L X 8H X 5W each and each one contains abut 10,000 bees. This number of packages will produce a lot of heatfoot as they are living organisms. Elevated level of heat is detrimental as in fatal and needs to be reduced or the bees could perish. I saw the model VP-543SP fan, which moves about 100 cfm. The trailer I am looking to buy is 7foot wide X 12foot long and 53inch interior height. At about 420+ Cubic Feet, I will need to move enough air to provide a good number of air changes per hour or possibly even one per minute. I am pondering a couple or more of these fans to move the air needed. More than one- as a redundancy if one fails and also to turn on and shut off fans as the temperatures deem necessary. Have you seen this application before? Any suggestions on make-up air vents also - air out has to equal air in, so adequate passive supply vs. powered exhaust can equal? Any suggestions are helpful. Thank you

asked by: Greg S

Helpful Expert Reply:

First of all there isn't something specifically designed for this.

Your trailer is going to get extremely hot during the summer months. Using a fan like the # VP-543SP you mentioned is going to move air and cool the trailer when it's stationary but there isn't a way to determine how many fans you'll need or how well the fans will control the temperature for the sake of the bees.

In addition to the fans a vent like # HMAV2-AVT2 might be something to consider. These are often used on enclosed trailers with one on each side of the front, the open vent facing forwards, and one on each side of the back with the open end facing rearward. This forces the airflow in the front and out the back. Although, I don't know what the wind force of highway speeds will do to the bees.

expert reply by: Charles S