Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[Speaker to Animals]

[Speaker to Animals]

If you could figure out how to do the bee removal service, I wonder how fast you could jump start a major operation and if the feral bees are any good. Imagine just collecting a few dozen large colonies in a few months and then using those to produce new bee colonies you can sell.

[C-Mag]

I'm not looking to make a bunch of money on the honey. Just supply our sugar needs. We've used raw honey as our primary sugar for the last 15 years. We go through 5 gallons a year. When I started honey was $8/gal, it is now $33/gallon. I've read that a typical hive produces 4 gallons per year.

I could do it, and I hope to. The wife is eager to do it. But I have to look at the entire processing of honey too. If we do one hive, we should probably do 2 to ensure a full supply even in bad years for honey.

For now it will have to wait. This year is focused on improving soils. I bought a tractor and have resurrected the old plow left rusting on the property when I bought it. I am currently working on resurrecting the disc. I've found a local horse manure source and a grass hay source for large pile composting. Worm farm is going to have to wait as well. I have irrigation lines to lay this spring and I'm looking at getting a hog to butcher in the next several weeks. Spring is great, busy as hell, but great.

[Speaker to Animals]

It's going to take you a few years to grow a nucleus colony to the point where you can harvest honey from it. You might as well buy a couple colonies now and work on growing them. It takes time to get productive.

Also, if you go a little bigger than you need, then you can potentially barter or sell surplus honey and wax to at least cover your annual costs to maintain the hives and get it closer to neutral costs.

[C-Mag]

That's what I'm thinking too. I'd love to jump into it, but I have to balance what work we can maintain on all projects. I'm actually just getting to planting the hügelkultur I built last year. The cover crop of oats worked great and I've checked, it's working. It's holding moisture very well. I'm going to run a trial crop this year in the hügelkultur. Potatoes and onions on the south face, I'm going to plant some ever greens on the north side.

[Speaker to Animals]

Yeah, I have to figure out where to park this bee colony. LOL

[C-Mag]

There is potential for you food costs to raise dramatically in the next year. The USDA crop report shows significant reductions in production due to the extremely wet spring in the Midwest.
https://downloads.usda.library.cornell. ... og2119.pdf

Roughly 30-50% less Corn and Soybeans are growing right now. Couple this with 200 million hogs being lost in China and food is likely to go up. Even if you don't eat that much corn, soybeans or pork, a helluva lot of people on this planet do, and when they can't eat Corn, Soy or Pork, they will be eating other foods.

Might be a smart play to deepen the larder a little.

[Speaker to Animals]

Maybe. The markets are really fixed at every level, though. I suspect a shit ton of food spoils in America just because the producers could not get it on a market.

If supply fizzles, the markets that are tightly controlled might open up.

The real issue is how much capacity do we really have here. I think it's quite a lot. I don't think we are even scratching the surface of how much food we can produce in America.

[C-Mag]

Maybe. The markets are really fixed at every level, though. I suspect a shit ton of food spoils in America just because the producers could not get it on a market.

If supply fizzles, the markets that are tightly controlled might open up.

The real issue is how much capacity do we really have here. I think it's quite a lot. I don't think we are even scratching the surface of how much food we can produce in America.

I'm going to be stocking up. I love bacon, and ham, and all the great products from the unclean beast. I'm not going to be paying 3X as much for it either.

Oh, we have an incredible capacity to grow more. I think we are still paying farmers not to grow things. But it takes time. If you want to increase production in any meaningful way you will need at least a year to get it into production, perhaps more.

Then you have the issue with harvest, right now the number of people who actually harvest grain, corn and soy is dropping. Few farmers do their own harvest because the cost of equipment. A new combine harvester costs around a half a million dollars. That's lots of money for a machine you use 2-4 weeks out of the year. Better to hire it out, but there a few new guys taking on the work.

[Speaker to Animals]

I think corn was planted pretty late this year in parts of the country as well due to climate.

This is why I am planning to rely fairly heavily on plasticulture, high tunnels, and various irrigation solutions. Drought, rain, whatever.