"You've collected yourself an impressive amount of work," Walt said.
Thomas laughed. "That's what I keep telling him."
Walt glanced at the father. "Not a bad thing, if he keeps it from turning into an impressive amount of trouble."
They spent the afternoon sorting equipment. Walt showed Caleb how to look for damage at the joints and along the wood grain, how to inspect old frame rests, how to recognize when a box had softened beyond safe repair, and why surfaces and old comb with uncertain disease histories required caution. Boxes with suspicious material were set aside for guidance from the county extension service and the appropriate state apiary authority. Salvageable equipment was separated from ruined frames and cleaned and refurbished according to its condition; Caleb abandoned his initial idea that simply putting a flame inside every box would make it suitable for bees.
By dusk only eleven hive bodies had been marked as promising, and even those needed work. Another thirteen might yield usable individual boards but not sound boxes. The rest were unsafe or impractical to restore. Caleb sat on an overturned bucket while Walt stretched his aching fingers, and for a little while the boy could not hide his disappointment.
"Forty boxes," he said. "And maybe eleven worth saving."
"That's eleven more than you had," Walt replied. "You're counting the pile you wanted instead of the useful pile you've got."
Thomas came out with a thermos and three mugs. He surveyed the separate stacks and the broad patch of empty ground where the worst equipment had been moved away. "I suppose this means he's serious," he said.
"He'd better be," Walt answered. "Because there's a living part to the job he hasn't met yet."
That evening Caleb made a ledger. On one page he recorded the condition and origin of each box. On another he listed what had to be purchased rather than salvaged: fresh frames, foundation where needed, sound bottoms and covers, feeders, protective gear, mite-monitoring supplies, and, most expensive of all, living starter colonies. He was startled by the total. Free wood had made the project sound cheap, but bees were not free, and responsible care required supplies he could not whittle out of scrap.
He had eight hundred and fourteen dollars saved from fence repairs, unloading hay, and helping a neighbor clear a drainage ditch the previous summer. The three nucleus colonies offered by a reputable supplier two counties away would use nearly all of that money before he bought feed and additional equipment. He erased his numbers twice, hoping he had added something incorrectly. In the end the pencil still arrived at the same discouraging total.