Bee on a Hot Tin Roof

Beautiful Milo. Ninety-two and still a charmer.

What makes bees cranky? The Beekeeper has been reading up on the subject like a parent who learns every remedy written to treat a colicky baby. He takes being stung very personally. He's a gentle beekeeper. He's not used to being stung. His bees are gentle. Milo's bees are not. (Although they don't seem to sting Milo.) Seems the worst thing you can do to bee to make them irate is to put their hives in the shade. Houston, we have a problem. The mulberry tree and the hazelnut tree keep the sun off the hives, not to mention they are under a roof.

Guess what makes me cranky? Extremely hot days standing waiting for a bus that does not stop. Arrgh! The bus stops on King Edward keep migrating. By the time I reach the farm I'm already tired of the heat. Anyway, I get a hold of myself and sit in the shade of the cherry trees with Milo. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we just sit. He calls me The Queen Bee and asks if I'm as sweet as honey. He tells me of the restorative powers of the mead he used to make (up to 2-3 years ago.) When he worked at a local hospital, Milo knew a doctor who called in sick with a "migrating headache." Then the doctor has some of Milo's mead and an hour later he's back at work. I tell him that my grandfather chokecherry wine. My dad says it was awful stuff.

Today we have more frames to scrape and get ready to swap for the honey-laden frames we plan on stealing from the bees today. Several customers stop by and purchase bags of vegetables. We meet a raw foodie who's made about juicing kale. He buys a big swack of the stuff to take home and feed into his industrial juicer. We attempt to swap recipes, but when I tell him I put cream in my mushroom sauce, he looks puzzled. "What kid of cream?"
"Just whipping cream," I say. "You reduce it until it's thick."
"You mean DAIRY" he says, eyes wide open in shock. "I've seen what that stuff does to people."
This comment makes me very cranky indeed. I get a "migrating" headache and Miles mercifully finds me a bottle of Advil and a bottle of Gatorade. Half an hour later, I'm good to go.

Have I mentioned how hot it is? Over thirty degrees. I manage to stay pretty cool until we suit up and start opening the hives. The wild bunch seem a bit tamer this week, and they appear to have a happy hive, with lots of brood. Some of the wax foundation seems to be a bit wobbly and the wires are not flat to the wax, so I wonder if that will prevent the bees from building comb there. Time will tell. The history of the wild bunch is that they were a swarm, so one has to watch their propensity to take off. Meanwhile airplanes seem so close that they could scrape their bellies on the tops of the mulberry tree, and I wonder aloud if that noise doesn't make the bees just a little crazy.

The Beekeeper is determined not to get stung. He has created cardboard armor for his ankles made of granola bar boxes, which he tucks into his socks. Guess what? He still gets one sting on his ankle. Much better than last time, however!




Most of the comb we take comes from one hive which needs more space to make honeycomb. The bees have started building comb on the ceiling of the hive, which I scrape off into a jar. I notice this honey is darker than the earlier honey we harvested--a rich golden color. I fight the urge to take my gloves off and put my finger in and taste it, because the bees are gorging on it. The Beekeeper puts the comb on a horizontal angle which he says the bees don't like. He will come back a few hours later to put the comb into a container when the bees have abandoned the comb. One thing I learned today is that if you weigh the hives every week at this point in the summer and one day the hive gets lighter, it's time to take off some of the comb because the bees figure they have enough honey for the winter.


Before we pack up and head home, Milo's daughter kindly gives me some cauliflower, broccoli and blueberries to take home. The Beekeeper drives me to the bus stop and I sail home, dreaming of a long iced green tea at Shaktea. One hour later my equilibrium is restored, and we dine on fresh blueberries with whipped cream and honey. Yes, real whipping cream. Dairy makes me very happy.

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.

Cantankerous Wee Beasties

Cherry Lane Farm is a very low key operation. It took me three visits to notice this bell all but obscured by grape vines.

Farmer's friend?

The vegetables are coming along nicely and the apple tree branches are bending with the weight of their bounty.



I discovered that a few raspberry bushes had survived the flooding. Sadly, no-one had been picking the fruit and much of it was just falling onto the ground. It broke my heart. Miles generously allowed me to take some home along with some beans and zucchini. But no beer.




After scraping and toasting some frames we decided to take a look inside two hives. "Let's go get stung," the Beekeeper said. "Speak for yourself," I replied, and zipped myself into a full suit. We were able to take off about six frames full of honey and a bit of extra burr and comb.

The second hive we examined was very aggressive compared to the first one. The Beekeeper has very gentle bees of his own, so he was unprepared for the cantankerous assault. I felt badly every time he got stung. Next time he'll wear a full suit and I will have two smokers going so I can get those bees gorging on honey instead of stinging.

One of the hives was lacking a frame so there was extra space in the hive. The bees built comb between frames, which we harvested and I took home to pick out what we call "hive debris." Miles gave me a pyrex dish and the honey leaked out of some of the uncapped comb into the bottom of the bowl. It's a very light, delicate spring honey. Thanks bees! Now go out and make some more honey.