Beekeeping

My father-in-law is a long-term (40 years) hobby beekeeper. He does not keep many bees, but on average he maintains from 8 to 15 hives each year. He also doesn't have the same harvest every season, but basically the honey harvest lasts for almost a whole year for him and his closest families. If he has a high yield, he can afford to sell honey, but it is not every year.

I will not talk about the benefit of honey to human health here, nor about how useful bees are in nature and in agriculture. I am sure everybody already knows this today.

I just want to remind you how important beekeeping is and beneficial in the times when SHTF occurs. Of course, not everyone has suitable premises for beekeeping, but today bees are successfully bred even in big cities.

Honey can be a very lucrative trade commodity in SHTF times. Lack of sugar on the market can replace honey. Its price will certainly rise rapidly at such a time, as well as the prices of other products, daily necessities.

Therefore, I think that the knowledge of the beekeeper will be very desirable even in SHTF times. In order to take full advantage of them, you need to prepare in advance. Best by training from an experienced beekeeper, self-study and the establishment of your own breeding in “peace time”. You don't have to breed a large number of bees in the beginning, but one or two families will be enough.

Gradually, you will improve and expand your bee colony every season. In two or three seasons, you can develop into a successful beekeeper. This activity can help you overcome the pitfalls of SHTF in the field of barter trade. You can exchange honey and other bee products for other scarce commodities.

Because bee products are not only honey as a sweetener and delicacy, but they can also be products for medical and health purposes - bee pollen, bee propolis and royal jelly. Another by-product of beekeeping is beeswax from which candles are made.

Starting to breed bees is not easy. In the beginning, you need to invest in equipment and technology, but your biggest initial investment will be to acquire theoretical expertise.

Here you will find links to professional literature on beekeeping. You can download books for free. They are mostly in English, but also in other languages and different formats, so you will need different readers and viewers to read them.

Click here for a list of beekeeping books.

Note: All documents in this list were freely accessible and collected from web by regular Google search way. Non of these books were hacked or downloaded any illegal way.

If you do not yet have your own production of bee products, I recommend trying high quality products from a renowned American manufacturer here:

Bee products