Archive for the ‘Beekeeping and Honey’ Category
Tuesday’s Tip: Adding income to the homestead budget.
July 6th, 2010
Whether the economy is good or bad, the fact that the homesteader has a wide array of options has never changed. Here are some ideas for adding some income to the homestead budget:
1. Farmer’s Markets – From home-grown fruits and vegetables to freshly baked bread, farmers markets offer many areas of income opportunity to the homesteader. Many homesteaders bring their honey, beeswax candles, flowers, seeds from the last harvest and herbs. The variety of things that can be sold at a farmers market is vast!
2. Farm Tours - Many people from the city and suburbs are often intrigued with farm life and excited to learn new skills that you may have already acquired. Set specific tour and lesson dates and get the word out. You may be surprised to find how many groups want to dig in the dirt and get in touch with where their food comes from. Sheep shearing and wool spinning are often interesting events along with a host of other typical homestead activities, that others don’t have the joy of sharing in unless you invite them.
3. Lessons – As we have seen more and more people are getting back to the basics of living more simply. The trouble with that is, many who move to the country don’t have the benefit of having had generations who passed down the skills to do so. You could teach bread baking, canning or animal husbandry with your neighbors who are new to the area.
4. Share your skills for a fee – Again touching on the newly arrived, greenhorn homesteader, you may want to offer a service of bush-hogging land they wish cleared, tilling the garden spot, hauling in or out debris or livestock for a small fee. You might be surprised what a tiny ad in the local paper may turn up as others move to your more rural neighborhood.
These are but a very few suggestions for making more income come into your homesteading budget. Count your blessings even in the tougher economic times and see just how many options you have as someone who has even the smallest of homesteads, or at least some homesteading skills!
Until next time!
Best Blessings!
Donna
The Millers own and operate Millers Grain House which offers Chemical Free and Organic Grains, Grain Mills, Bread Machines,Grain buckets, Bosch Mixers, the NutriMill, instructional tutorials, recipes and more.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Tags: 
A Honey Bees Homesteading Guide
September 14th, 2009
For most people, modern life has evolved far from our roots in the natural and simple settings of a homestead lifestyle. The modern life many have chosen, typically requires people to live and work in an artificial, man-made environment. Very few have the privilege of working close to the land on a regular basis and even fewer still have the advantage of working in a homestead setting.
One of the few hobbies or jobs that will get you in touch with the beauty of homesteading is that of a beekeeper. Keeping bees is an ancient art that goes back thousands of years. It can provide you with an intimate connection to nature while learning about the basic biology of living creatures.
The greatest benefit of becoming a beekeeper is the production of honey. Not only can a thriving honey bee hive produce enough honey to let its keeper sell the harvest, it will still retain enough stores to get the bees through the winter months. Compared to the over-filtered and over-processed honey sold in supermarkets, honey produced on a homestead by a small apiarist is by far a more superior product.
Many people have never tasted pure, unfiltered honey, straight from the comb. It is a wonderful treat to taste honey in its most natural state, and you get great satisfaction of knowing you have partnered with these incredible creatures to produce a beautiful crop. As a growing business, the market for raw honey is tremendous due to the demand.
However, there is more involved with beekeeping than just the obvious benefit. Beekeepers, whether professional with thousands of honey bee hives or a hobbyist with only a hive or two, provide a critical and valuable service to the homestead and the greater community. For many reasons, most of which are not completely understood, feral, or wild bees have been dying out in recent years. This makes beekeepers very important to the continued preservation of the bee supply. Agriculture is completely dependent on pollination provided by honeybees and about a third of the food we eat requires pollination by bees. If the honey bees disappear; human food disappears too! Each and every bee colony is a valuable resource – and an important part of the homesteading experience.
As a beekeeper, you will be thoroughly exposed to the intimate side of nature; more so than any other hobby or activity you could pursue to get in tune with the outdoors. Beekeeping has many benefits; environmental as well as the simple function of the homestead. You have the greatest opportunity to produce nature’s sweet nectar, while learning the biology of a wondrous creature and possibly even profiting from this important hobby.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
