R:9 / I:3
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES
I've been thinking for a while about them, and in the future at some point (especially at the /qa/ mansion) I'd like to do some beekeeping for harvesting honey. When it comes to the usual fears you'd have around bees, it's actually not too bad based on what I've read in terms of getting stung if you know what you're doing. And in time it seems like your body, assuming if doesn't develop an allergic reaction, can develop a more immune response to bee venom rendering a large part of bee stings useless. Also somehow
(
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29956606/) bee venom can be used to treat HIV, so when it comes to the maids we won't need to worry at the /qa/ mansion.
What got me interested in the concept is that recently I've been getting into using honey as my primary sweetener vs sugar. Initially it was sparked just by a taste preference after trying some local honey at my farmer's market. However after looking into it a bit more, honey has a fair bit of health benefits as a sweetener compared to equivalent amounts of sugar. Like its anti-inflammatory and anti-biotic properties containing all sorts of vitamins and minerals that granulated sugar doesn't. Not to mention that honey consumption can help as an exposure to pollen for improving tolerance and helping reduce allergies!
Also unlike sugar, honey can have its own unique taste that's separate from just its normal taste. The honey I got hooked on was a special lavender flavor, which is made by having your bees primarily making honey via lavender pollen/nectar. It's quite hard to set up! Especially since your bees can travel up to 6 miles away from their hive in search of pollinating flowers. The end result though is delicious and a nice relaxant in the mornings to help me focus. There's some other nice flavors too but going through all of them would probably be wasteful, but the ones that do deserve a mention are the honey hot sauces made by infusing honey with some hot pepper. I've got one infused with habanero, and even though I'm sorta wimpy when it comes to spice I could lather that on some chicken and eat it fine without my mouth being set on fire. It really accentuates the taste and enhances at time juiciness of meat.
I think with all the greatness of honey and how it can be produced in your own home out in nature, investigating and learning beekeeping would be a great skill. Within the efforts one could take towards being self-sufficient, being able to make your own sweetener would have to be pretty high up there, I'd assume. So hopefully kissu's still got that interest of their own and can take some inspiration from this thread whenever summer next comes around or maybe share any specialized knowledge if you've got any.