This is something every homestead should have, bee hives.
These boxes are on the edge of one of the fields I check each week. Several of my clients allow bee keepers to put hives near the field to help aid in pollination. I have to be careful about the insecticides I recommend in these fields, some of them are very toxic to bees. No matter what insecticide we use, when we have hives near the field we wait until late in the day to spray these fields. Late in the day the bees are back in the hives and out of the field so there will be little contact between the bees and the insecticides. Not only are bees good for pollination, they provide honey. Honey is one of the better long-term survival foods, it provides sweetener and honey flavor and will last for years if properly stored. Honey has been found in the pyramids which was over 2000 years old and was still edible. I am going to try to keep a few hives on the homestead someday. I will need to have someone help me since I know absolutely nothing about bee keeping and honey. (except eating it) One of Nephews friends has been keeping bees for 2 years, maybe I can give him a spot to set up some hives if I pay the expenses for them. It will be a good place to start learning.
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Tags: bee hives, bee keeping, homesteads, honey, preparedness, survival foods
Years ago I gave my hubby a beekeepers outfit for Christmas: hives, netted helmet, smoker… and bees! He had always wanted to have bees. We collected some honey, but didn’t have an extractor, so it was quite messy. The second year the bees were attacked by a fungus or virus, and we lost our hive. He wants to get back into it some time.
Cyndi, thanks for stopping by. There has been a big problem with bee die-offs all around the country. There have been many different theories as to the problem, but no definite answers. Maybe if more of us grew bees, enough of them would survive to develop an immunity to whatever is happening. If your hubby gets back into it let us know how it turns out.