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The truck stopped on the dirt road before sunrise, gear showing over the side of the bed and two people with their backs turned beside it; behind, the mountain range and a band of orange sky

A sunrise at the Santa Fe apiary

Marcelino and I went up to check the nectar flow. The first photograph is from 6:44.

1The truck before sunrise · Santa Fe apiary, Veraguas · 22 Feb 2024, 06:44

We went up with Marcelino Guevara to check the nectar flow.

The photographs from that day begin at 6:44 in the morning: the truck stopped on the dirt road, the gear coming out of the bed, the smoker on the ground, and the sunrise still behind the mountain range.

By 7:33 we were already up on the hillside. The hives run down the slope between the trees, and the smoke hangs in the morning air, which at that hour still is not moving.

Between 7:33 and 7:50 there are sixty-three almost identical photographs: the same slope, the same hives, one minute after another. That is what happens when the work is slow and your hands are busy.

The last photograph is from 7:50. After that there is only a video, from 8:13.

Checking the flow means looking at what is coming in: whether the bloom is giving, whether supers need to go on, whether it is worth coming back the following week. Four apiaries in four provinces means four different bloom cycles, and that is exactly the part that interests me.

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The red dirt road climbing through the vegetation towards two twin peaks, the sky still grey
2The red dirt road towards the twin peaks · 06:4920240222_064947
Two beekeepers among the trees: in the foreground one with the veil lifted and his face uncovered, and behind him the other in the full white suit with his arms crossed
3The two of them, suited up · 07:3320240222_073310
The hillside from above: a line of coloured hives running down between the trees, smoke hanging in the still air and two small figures working among them
4The hillside, the hives and smoke hanging in the still air · 07:3720240222_073700
A beekeeper's veil seen from below against the white sky, dozens of bees settled on the mesh and flying around it; the face barely visible behind
5The veil from below, covered in bees · 07:4620240222_074649
The same hillside at the end of the morning, hives in a line with two figures among them, the light gone flat
6The last one of the morning · 07:5020240222_075023
7:30. The whole hillside, hives running down between the trees and the two of them working at the top. Sixteen seconds of the fifty-four it runs.

Follow the thread

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