Baldar: honey from the Kara-Buura hills

Cold May. Sainfoin opens one week late. The bees sit at the door and look at me like I am guilty. I said: not my fault.

My friend Jumabai Sydykov died on 11 September at home. He was in his 80th year. We buried him the next day beside his father under the apricot tree hill. A great many people came, from Talas and Nurzhan and Aulie-Ata, some on foot.

I sat next to him on many days. I will say this about him: he never played the akyn in front of the bees. They liked him. They sat on his hat. The day before he died he asked for a spoon of honey and said: "Mamat, this is the last season." I said, be quiet. He laughed.

I put a jar on the grave. The bees will find it.

23 kg a hive. Good year. 60 hives. We took 1,380 kg and two cans spilled in the yard. I did not speak for an hour. The bees were angry. The neighbour's dog was fat after.

Sold 10 kg to Gulmira apa in Talas. She sent a photo of a cake. It is the best-looking cake I have ever seen. There was a lot of honey in it, and in the middle a small honey bee made of marzipan.

Gulmira's cake. She sent the photo to my daughter and my daughter sent it to me.

A woman wrote to me. She has a blog about cooking, Gulmira. She says she makes the honey cake, medovik, for weddings and needs 10 kg of honey. She found my blog on the Kündölük list. I wrote back: yes, the mountain flowers.

I never sold honey by letter. It is a new thing. I will pack it in the glass jars and give them to the driver of the Talas bus.

The winter house door, half buried.

Minus 24 last night. I went to the winter house at 3 in the morning. Hum is good. Went back to bed. My wife said: you smell of wax. I said: yes.