I built a manor in the Middle Ages

Chapter 129 The First Piece of Honey (25)

"Sir, if you want to keep bees, I think I need to get a good set of equipment first."

Inside the wooden castle, Luc sat on the stone main seat on the first floor, tapping his fingers on the chair, and listened quietly to Oliver speaking below.
"First, a loose linen robe with tight cuffs, then a pair of shoes, not secondhand shoes from a shoemaker, but real shoes, and finally a mask."

Collecting honey is a dangerous process, especially since Oliver currently does not have any new bees that have been raised. He has to start from scratch and cannot help but be cautious.

"Clothes and shoes are easy. I have ready-made materials here. As for the mask you mentioned, what does it look like?"

"It's probably a circle." Oliver gestured with his hand. "Weave it with thatch and put it on your face. Then sew it to the cloak."

After saying this, he was afraid that Luc didn't understand, so he took the charcoal and sketched the general shape on the ground.

"This is it."

"Also, if possible, I need a pair of gloves."

Luke nodded. Oliver's request was not excessive and he could provide it.

In fact, he knew that Oliver was indirectly asking for treatment from him.

After all, not every lord can afford to be a beekeeper.

Besides the things he mentioned, beekeepers also needed a dedicated area for beekeeping. They couldn't just keep bees in residential areas. Otherwise, both people and livestock would suffer from bee stings every day. This required the lord to have a larger fiefdom.

"Oh, and beehives, sir. Please give me a week to make them, but I need to explain to you in advance that the beehives can't be used immediately after they're made. I need to familiarize myself with wild bees first, and it will take about a month before I can actually raise them."

"No problem." Luc nodded in agreement. He could afford to wait for a while.

There were no bees around the manor, so they had to explore further out. Fortunately, Oliver was experienced and knew where in the forest the bees were most likely to be hiding.

That night, Luc distributed the materials to Oliver and asked him to go down and prepare them himself. As a professional beekeeper, he knew how to make at least a mask and a beehive, but Luc had to find a way to make shoes.

That’s right, in the barren Middle Ages, even shoes were important supplies.

The reason why Oliver specifically emphasized second-hand shoemakers is because most medieval peasants could not afford to buy shoes and could only buy worn-out shoes from second-hand dealers. This is the case at the Luke Manor now. Apart from a pair of tattered old shoes for everyone, they only have straw sandals woven in the summer to wear in rotation.

After thinking about it, Luc asked Lisa to find a pair of shoes that had been abandoned for a long time in the utility room on the second floor - its original owner was Martin.

Luc was reluctant to throw away any supplies that were not needed temporarily.

Luc had leather but no soles. However, after measuring Oliver's feet, they seemed to be about the same size as Martin's. This was an easy problem to solve. He just needed to sew some uppers on them.

This task was naturally given to the maid. When she handed it to Oliver at noon the next day along with a pair of pigskin gloves, she didn't expect that he had already woven the mask.

It's fast enough.

Standing behind Oliver, Luc watched him build a beehive.

There are many types of beehives, and the one Oliver is making now is a beehive.

Oliver weaved the vines he had cut upwards, his technique exquisite, evidently one he had done many times before. The flexible vines moved swiftly in his hands. He was weaving a very old-fashioned beehive.

The final shape will be a cylindrical shape, narrow at the bottom and wide at the top. There is nothing much to say about the base and the surrounding areas. You only need to leave a gap in the middle of the front for taking honey. The rest of the parts can be woven little by little, with the focus on the upper part.

First of all, the top will not be sewn with vines, but covered with layers of thin and narrow wooden boards. Each wooden board is as thick as a finger, or even narrower. These are the so-called beams. Inside the beam, there will be a raised circle. According to Oliver, if bees are raised, they will most likely build a hive on the raised part, because this is very similar to the place chosen by wild bees when building nests.

The biggest advantage of doing this is that it makes extraction easier.

A few days later, when the honeycomb was completed, Oliver demonstrated it to Luke.

He grabbed the upper wooden beam and, with a little force, pulled up the entire beam and the protruding part by the roots, like pulling a carrot. He pointed inside and said, "Sir, when the time comes, we can build a beehive. In the spring, I can simply move half of the honeycomb from the hive into an empty nest, and the number of nests filled with bees can be doubled!"

Luke smiled and nodded. He still believed in Oliver, as everyone has their own expertise.

"I've allocated a bee farm in the northern part of the orchard. You'll live and work there. I'll have someone build you a decent house. As long as you provide a lot of honey, I won't be stingy with food or money!"

Oliver bowed and thanked him. He didn't want to go into the mountains with Luke because he was afraid that he was a pauper. Now that he had a territory and the food he had been given these days was good, he gradually felt at ease.

A week later, a specially sewn linen robe was made and given to Oliver to wear. He also put on a round mask and looked a bit like a wizard.
That afternoon, Luc took Ryan and Oliver and began wandering around the outskirts of the forest.

They first turned their attention to the other side.

……

Autumn was approaching and the weather was getting cooler. Oliver crossed the Agate River on a raft, walked in the forest, and passed by the grapevines. He turned left and right and finally locked on a direction.

His eyes lit up and he said, "Sir, I don't think there might be a beehive there!"

"Oh?" Luke and Ryan stopped decisively and let Oliver move forward alone.

After a while, a buzzing sound was heard, and Oliver successfully found a nest of bees on the treetop!
The beehive was not big, but high enough. Unlike wasps, bees were relatively gentle, but only gentle. Oliver tried to slow down his movements as much as possible and gradually approached the hive.

As a beekeeper, he is very familiar with the habits of bees.

It knows exactly which movements and odors you are most sensitive to and when the active period is the weakest.

Just like Luke's original choice, Oliver first lit a circle of smoke, but the size of the smoke was controlled extremely precisely, which could both smoke away the bees and not make the other party too aggressive.

Climbing up the tree little by little and sitting on a branch, Oliver, whose face could not be seen clearly, circled around the beehive with a burning plant in his hand. Luc squinted his eyes. His technique was very slow and followed the direction of the bees. Soon a large number of bees were blown away. After waiting for a while, the skilled and courageous Oliver actually reached out and broke off some honey from the beehive alive!

Then he slowly climbed down the treetop as if nothing had happened. The scattered bees kept circling around him, but they didn't sting him.

Ryan opened his mouth wide. There were no beekeepers in his former village in Provence, so he was extremely shocked by this magical scene, as if Oliver was not a human being, but a member of the bees.

"grown ups!"

Oliver picked up the honey and held it in front of Luc with a little pride, "This is the first piece of honey I contribute to you!"

(End of this chapter)