Cleaning Bee

We put the call out for a group of folks to help us with the daunting task of cleaning the honey room at Cherry lane Farm to get it ready for extraction. The room had been sealed up like a tomb for a few years and was in desperate need of some TLC. Part of the fun was finding the equipment buried under the detritus.

They came. They mopped. They scrubbed. We sorted out the recycling from the garbage and we clean up the equipment. The extractor had to be taken apart and power-washed. It is very similar to the one I used to extract honey with my dad when I was about nine years old.


It's a giant, awkward thing, although not without its charm. I was fantasizing about taking it to a carwash to get it sanitized. In the end, The Beekeeper and I decided we will rent a smaller, portable model that is easier to clean.

One of the volunteers scrubbed the inside of the extractor with steel wool.

Now this thingamagig might be some kind of giant juicer.

Put apples in the top and then what?

Here's an old cabbage cutter. It looks like Milo bought it at a yard sale. This was one of two that we found, along with an old giant tub of saurkraut, jars of preserved cherries and a vat of apple cider vinegar.

This is the coolest invention: a handmade stringer for wiring frames. We will put this to good use!



Note to self: next time we do a job like this, we need a wet vac. Getting the floor dry was a challenge, but the guys used the mop and newspapers to soak it all up and fans to dry off the rest.

Here's what the extractor looks like re-assembled.

Now you can see the floor!

Miles discovered a filing cabinet full of his grandfather's documents from long ago, including the ticket for the ship he sailed on from Europe to Canada, and a passport from the 40's after Milo was liberated from the German POW camp.


We are very grateful to the people who came out and helped us. Milo's wife Marguerite came and offered us soft drinks and Perrier for our efforts and this week we were paid in fresh, ripe blueberries.