These photos were taken on the day I describe in Chapter Four of Visiting Tom.
He filled it with punk and worked the bellows.
The upper edge of the bellows— where Tom squeezes the paddles to make the smoke puff out— is blackened and blistered in the manner of a hot dog left too long on the barbecue.
“That hose is off a Sears Shop Vac. The engine is off a snowblower. That cost me fifty bucks. Then I made the two fans. The way you balance fans like that is you put a solid shaft through’em, then spin’em on a steel rail. If they always stop at the same place, you cut’em down or weld’em up for counterbalance.” Before he pulls the starter cord, he says, “I only use this thing an hour a year, but I’ve used it for thirty years . . .”
Tom blows the bees out of the “supers” using his homemade blower.
You can see more hives in the background. There had been a bear around.
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