Her Cultivation Diary

Chapter 90: Honey and Growth_1

“No, that’s not right,”

Song Tan said with confidence and righteousness, “You forgot, these bees were bought from Uncle Beekeeper; they work for our family.”

“This is pollen collected from our fields and turned into honey. Sister will leave some for them to feed their young later, and the rest we need to extract.”

“It’s perfectly normal, just like when Qiaoqiao does chores for the house, and Sister pays Qiaoqiao a salary.”

Qiaoqiao, who half-understood, now cautiously brushed the bees aside with a feather duster.

His movements were extremely gentle, both slow and light.

Song Tan stood there holding the honeycomb, not rushing at all. It took a good ten minutes for the bees to be brushed away, leaving flat honeycombs of various shades of yellow.

Placing the honeycomb on a container, Song Tan carefully pointed out to Qiaoqiao:

“See, this whitish area, these are the bee’s young; their larvae are hatching inside.”

“So they leave a lot of honey for the young, which Sister won’t touch. We’ll cut the other half that doesn’t have larva.”

“You just asked why we’re harvesting honey, right? Because we need to use a knife to shave off the top layer of white beeswax…”

“The knife must be as flat as possible, don’t press too hard, gently, bit by bit…”

Song Tan’s hands were actually fast and steady, but for Qiaoqiao’s sake, she proceeded slowly.

After the whole piece was done, the honey, now unprotected by beeswax, slowly began to drip out.

Then she flipped the honeycomb over, “Here, Qiaoqiao, try the other half.”

Qiaoqiao took the knife, hesitating to go forward: “I’m afraid of making a mistake, of cutting into their young.”

This problem was quite intractable.

Even the most skilled beekeeper sometimes made a hasty move and accidentally cut into the larva.

Song Tan abandoned the usual way of cajoling children and seriously said, “But if you don’t try, we won’t get the honey, and these bees will have no economic value—they would be raised in vain.”

“Over time, without care, they might freeze to death in the cold winter snow.”

“If Qiaoqiao is brave and careful, taking it slowly, you might make mistakes at first and feel sad, but once you get the hang of it, this won’t happen again.”

The speech was long and complicated, but Qiaoqiao seemed to understand the overall message.

Standing there, after much hesitation, he finally tightened his grip on the knife.

Song Tan also breathed a sigh of relief.

“Just like that, slowly, bit by bit, careful not to cut yourself.”

“Look, the little bees are all waiting at the side, once we’re done, they can go back home.”

She instructed Qiaoqiao to hold the knife as flat as possible, little by little moving it forward—

“Ah!”

Qiaoqiao suddenly cried out.

When Song Tan looked, she saw that his knife had slipped, cutting through three bee larvae inadvertently, bisecting the white grubs which obviously died.

He stood there, knife in hand, and Song Tan could clearly see tears swirling in his eyes, yet this time, he did not cry.

Just sniffed, carefully removed the larvae, and continued on with the work.

Song Tan breathed another sigh of relief.

She knew she would definitely live longer than Qiaoqiao, but their parents weren’t so sure.

And they didn’t want to put that responsibility on their daughter either. If Qiaoqiao could support himself by beekeeping in the future, they would certainly be very happy.

It took Qiaoqiao a full twenty minutes to clean the beeswax off that side of the small honeycomb.

Afterward, Song Tan placed the honeycomb frame into a honey extractor beside him.

The extractor has two clamps in the middle, where you’d insert the honeycomb frame like placing a file, one on each side. Then you can turn the handle, and the honey inside quickly spins out.

It’s similar to the spin dry function of a washing machine.

One box holds five frames, and here there were a total of five boxes.

Qiaoqiao became more and more proficient as she worked; starting from taking half an hour just for one side, she later managed to finish in ten minutes, and her progress that afternoon was significantly great.

However, by the time she got the hang of it, it was almost dark.

The two of them reorganized the beehives, and with Qiaoqiao carrying a basin and Song Tan holding the heavy bucket of honey, they descended from the mountain.

It was too dark to see the tea leaves, and since they still had to pick tea leaves tonight, Wu Lan was almost done cooking dinner.

At this moment, seeing her return with a bucket, moving with ease and a pleased expression, she even laughed and said, “I told you it’s too soon to get honey, the bees need to ferment the pollen for a few days, don’t they?”

But who would have known, as she turned her head to look, hey! There was quite a bit of honey in that cylindrical bucket.

Wu Lan cried out in surprise and couldn’t help but chide her daughter, “Why didn’t you say there was so much honey? We haven’t even washed all those jars we prepared.”

Now she had to hurry to set up a pot to boil water, and quickly put all the prepared glass jars into it to sterilize.

Qiaoqiao carefully covered the honey bucket with a mesh net, then puffed out her chest and declared loudly, “Today’s honey was spun by Qiaoqiao!”

“Oh my!” Wu Lan praised absentmindedly, “Qiaoqiao is really impressive!”

She thought Qiaoqiao was only responsible for turning the handle.

Ordinarily, Qiaoqiao never would have noticed her mother’s perfunctory praise, but today she had truly put in a lot of effort, bending over to work for hours.

Now her back ached, and her hands hurt as well.

Feeling wronged, she said, “Mom, I did it all.” Wu Lan was taken aback for a moment.

Song Tan quickly explained, “That’s right. From taking out the comb to cutting the beeswax, and finally spinning the honey, Qiaoqiao did it all. I was just helping a little.”

“Really?” Wu Lan was also stunned.

“Yes, really. If Qiaoqiao can do it herself, what can’t she do?”

She said as if it were the most natural thing.

A six-year-old child already understands a lot, and besides, Qiaoqiao has learned to control her body and strength quite well over the years.

She just lacked someone to teach her with patience and detail.

After all, with so much work at home, it’s not possible for parents to attend to her every day.

Wu Lan’s eyes reddened in an instant, and looking at the bucket of honey, she was filled with pride:

“Good! Good! Qiaoqiao is so amazing! Truly amazing!”

She then hurriedly shouted loudly, “Old Song! Old Song, come and look, your son has brought back honey from cutting!”

All the while she beamed with delight, “After we bottle it later, the first bottle is for mom to make tea with, so I can taste our Qiaoqiao’s skill.”

Qiaoqiao was extremely proud, “Of course! Reserved for mom! The rest will be sold by sister to earn money for beekeeping.”

Song Sancheng had already rushed out from the house, and once again he asked about the process, watching Qiaoqiao gesture excitedly. Despite his age, he felt a lump in his throat.

Turning to Song Tan, he expressed with satisfaction, “Good, good, you sisters and brothers are doing well, better than anything else.”

Song Tan was really afraid they would cry.

But alas, the heart of a parent.

She was so afraid they would cry, that at the moment she quickly reminded, “Mom, have you finished boiling your jars?”