One of the bittersweet memories that I have about honeybees is when I was a child of about 6 years old.  My daughter requests this story be told over and over again to her at bedtime as she is also almost 6. 

My father was going to a man’s home that he knew to remove some hives from his field and asked us to come along to help.  My two brothers and I were quite excited to go with him.  When we got there the hives were taped up on the outside to prevent the bees from escaping in transport.  My dad took a dolly along and loaded a couple of hives on the dolly and we began moving through the field towards the truck that we would load them on.  Unfortunately, we hit a large bump in the terrain, and the hives went flying off the dolly.  The hives came apart, and the bees were extremely angry.  We were told to skedaddle towards the truck, which we were eager to do.  We got inside the cab and were swatting and slapping the bees that followed us inside while my father was still attempting damage control and to try to rescue the bees.  I remember that when all was said and done he ended up with about 25 beestings, and he lay sick in bed for several days.

But the wonderful part about beekeeping is the golden liquid that we often refer to our spouses as.  Honey is delicious and makes for a great substitute to sugar in almost any recipe.  As Grant points out in the video, it helps you to make a great connection with your neighbors when you give it away.  And honey stores for a long time.  Don’t worry that it hardens.  It can be “reconstituted” easily by heating it up.  Put a bunch in your food storage for rotation and emergency situations.  Honey contains lots of essential vitamins and minerals.

Did you know that there are different flavors of honey?  Yes, depending upon where the bee gathers the pollen the honey will have a hint of flavoring from the landscape.  I have tasted lavender-flavored honey, honey produced from orange groves, raspberry honey, and many other tasty types.  Try some for yourself.  Clover honey is great, but you need to tempt your taste buds with a variety.  You’ll love the several selections!

Related Posts:

Food Storage: Wild Game Meat
Food Storage: Bottling Juice and Fruit
Self Reliance and Food Storage: Gardening

Tags: beekeeping, bees, cooking, Emergency Preparedness, food storage, Food Storage, gardening, honey, honeybees, Preparedness, recipes, Self Reliance, survival

2 Responses to “Self Reliance: Beekeeping for Food Storage Honey”

1. Bruce Hopkins says: August 20, 2009 at 5:59 am

   Bees are fast disappearing from our landscapes, and being Africanized by the accidentally-introduced African bee. I haven’t seen a honeybee in years.

2. keri says: August 20, 2009 at 10:58 am

   Hey Patrick- we did the geo cache on Tuesday. It was so much fun. The kids caught about 7 frogs and stepped in lots of cow poop.