Here we are again at Cherry Lane Farm where a few brave souls have climbed tall ladders to pick the lush ruby cherries that give the farm it's name. Earth Girl and I are going to pick strawberries and I am going to help clean up a few frames.
We meet the Grandma of the farm, and she is a treat. She says no matter how hot it is, it is always cool and breezy under the cherry trees. She tells us stories of falling asleep in a chair next to the extractor while processing the honey on late summer nights. One time she fell down the basement stairs and hit her head on the extractor. "Milo had to take the dent out with a hammer," she says, "but it's a good thing the extractor was there or my head would have hit the cement!" She shows me her lovely pendant with a picture of a Serbian painting of The White Angel. "She protects us, the white angel. We need her." Her grandson manages the farm now, and he helps us get the frames ready for the honey the bees will make in the late summer. Meanwhile her daughter shakes her head as she shows us the packages of romaine lettuce and cherries Grandma bought at a nearby box store in a shopping cart that was full to the brim. Two cheery men in bright orange vests come by to collect the "borrowed" shopping cart. Grandma has been busted. She shrugs and laughs and brings us a bottle of juice, glasses, and a pyrex dish of ice for our drinks.
First, we use hive tools to scrape off the old wax, then we toast the frames with a blow torch to clear of the rest of the wax and sterilize them. The smell of smoke and beeswax fills the air as people drop by to buy lettuce and pick more cherries and strawberries.
These are the tools used to wire the frames. Only small-scale beekeepers can afford the time to do this the old fashioned way. We weave the wires in and out and nail and staple them in place. They need to be as tight as possible, so they twang like guitar strings.
The half frames don't need wire to hold them in place, but The Beekeeper has this ingenious invention that give the wax an electric shock in key places to melt the wax and fix it to the wire grid. The trick is to tap lightly on the "Frankenstein" button because lingering there would snap the wires or melt holes in the wax.
The light and shadows on the wax show its mysterious luminous quality.
The best part of the job? I get paid in strawberries!
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