We couldn't figure out beekeeping. Tried a couple times, but the bees would leave or die. You have to either live a mile from the nearest row crop field or coop up your bees when they spray. So beekeeping is something of a suburban only food source. But keeping goats is a rural only food source and I can trade one cheese wheel for a years supply of honey.
That's too bad. All bees will swarm if you dont keep killing the queens. -I mean the queen cells. I think I squashed about 10 of them. Before I moved, i just let them swarm and take off.
A healthy hive will swarm, but that's just some of the bees leaving with the new queen. Sometimes the queen is old and the new queen cells renew the queen of the main hive. My bees weren't healthy and they abandoned the hive. I think the first ran out of honey during the winter and the second split at the first sign of cold weather because they were half killer bees.
Buy a red cabbage, some vinegar and salt and some peppercorns. Chop the cabbage, mix the vinegar with water and the salt. Put it all in a clean jar. Wait 2 weeks. Eat.
Before my uncle passed who made pottery in his shed with a wheel/kiln etc, he made me a large sauerkraut pot, which has a ceramic 2 piece weight to place on the cabbage and a lip on the edge to create a seal with water/oil. A traditional germanic design as he was based in Berlin for some time. I asked him if he would be able to make one as I was interested in all things to do with preserving food, and he gifted it me for the following Christmas. I treasure it in a way that surpasses anything bought in a store.
Yeah man, it encourages me to make things for people. Having a craft skill is so useful for those around you. My dad was a joint and woodturner, my aunt does quilting and textiles and another knitted amazing sweaters for my kids with their names on etc they have made so many cool things for people over the year, it's never too late to learn a new skill, my dad took up tap dancing at 65
uncle addy blessed the garden this year - three quart-sized bags of peaches in the freezer, 2 quarts of pesto in the freezer, 50lbs of onions, 60 heads of garlic (and two big bags of spring scapes still in the freezer), hot peppers galore, and more squash, tomatoes, and carrots than we could keep up with so the chickens got a lot of veggies too. also plenty of raspberries to munch on walking through the garden.