Bee haulers- exempt from keeping a logbook???

Wondering if any experienced bee-haulers or DOT officers who might be here, can shed some light on this.

Husband recently started with a flatbed co. that does a lot of business hauling bees. He's been told by the company owner & other experienced drivers, that when he's got bees, he is NOT required to keep a logbook or follow HOS rules.

'Course, this sounded like a bit of trucker myth/BS to both of us, so he asked me to check it out. In the meantime he's playing it safe & keeping his logbook legal no matter what he's hauling.

And, to my suprise, I did find this slightly confusing reference in the FMSCR, section 391.2, General exemptions:
"(b) Apiarian industries. The rules in this part do not apply to a driver who is operating a commercial motor vehicle controlled and operated by a beekeeper engaged in the seasonal transportation of bees."

(emphasis mine)
The wording has got me completely befuddled.

Does the driver of the vehicle ALSO have to be the actual beekeeper, in order to be exempt from federal regulations??

Or is the exemption for the *driver*...period, whether he is a commercial beekeeper or a city boy who can't tell a honeybee from a horsefly?

I can't find much by Googling the subject, except hearsay on a beekeeping forum that cited the wrong FMCSR section....so I am wondering if anyone has actual experience with this? Preferrably experience that involved law enforcement either validating OR invalidating your interpretation of this regulation . Or if you ARE law enforcement, tell me if you've come across this & your understanding of the law.

Thanks in advance for any help!!

 

You must be quicker on the up-take than me (not hard to do)....I added some pretty color to the text to indicate where my confusion lies....now it matches my living room decor, too.

"Controlled & operated", to me, means whoever is holding the wheel and pushing the appropriate pedals at the appropriate times....unless the underground beekeeping illuminati has come out with remote-controlled coin operated trucks .

I am a driver & I couldn't control or operate my truck if a beekeeper were already controlling and operating it, without severely violating his personal space.

So again, does this exemption only apply if the person driving the truck is the beekeeper?

If a sous chef, proctologist or weatherman (with a valid CDL) were to haul bees that he did not own, associate with, or even like very much....would he still be exempt from the regulations in part 391?

For what it's worth, I may have answered my own question upon further research. Hours-of-service regulations are covered in part 395 of the FMCSR. This exemption only refers to the rules in part 391.....so, apparently a 16 year old beekeeper who doesn't speak English and hasn't provided a verified 10 year employment history can haul his own bees, but he better keep his logs in order.

Reading a Taiwanese translation of War & Peace would probably be a lot easier than the FMCSR site. Bits & pieces are OK but in full, it sort of looks like something a dyslexic lawyer wrote on day 3 of a cocaine high.

ADDED: GasHauler, yep, you said it while I was typing my reply, but I realized the same thing once I did some more research. Now I look sorta foolish on a public forum, but I'm well accustomed to making a spectacle of myself in public, so that's quite alright.