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Bees Like John (The Baptist), by Mike The Bee Shepherd
In a true TEOTWAWKI situation, many people will naturally resort to hunting and fishing to procure food. The increased hunting pressure will make many animals nocturnal and quickly deplete the populations of wild game. There is, however, one overlooked source of food that flies completely under the radar by even the most seasoned survivalists. It tastes delicious, lasts forever, replenishes itself to be harvested again and again, is a phenomenal barter item, and can be found in every state in America. I am talking about wild honey! The Bible says that this is the food that sustained John the Baptist during his time in the wilderness and that’s all the endorsement I need.
Allow me to give you a quick primer on honey. Honey has roughly 1,376 calories per pound. It is not uncommon for a healthy colony of bees to produce 60 to 80 pounds of surplus honey in a good season. That equates to 60-80 days of life sustainment for one person from one hive. Honey has an indefinite shelf life. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian kings was found to be perfectly edible. Honey also has multiple uses. Besides its obvious value as a food item, honey can be fermented to make mead (honey wine) which can be further distilled to make ethanol fuel. Honey also has antibacterial qualities since it contains trace amounts of hydrogen peroxide and it was reportedly used by Roman Soldiers to pack sword wounds. Honey can and will crystallize over time since it is a super saturated solution but you can easily restore it back to liquid form by gently heating it. Did I mention that Winnie the Pooh loves the stuff?
I think it’s safe to say that John the Baptist didn’t get his honey from the local food co-op or Piggly Wiggly. Our ancestors didn’t have the luxury of buying bees from the Internet and having them shipped in a tidy box via UPS, instead they used an ancient technique known as “bee lining”. Locusts may not travel in a straight line but fortunately for us, the honey bee generally does. It is this straight-line behavior that we can utilize to lead us back to the proverbial “honey-hole”. There are numerous techniques for bee lining and although I doubt John the Baptist used trigonometry to locate his wild bees, we can. Do you remember the days back in high school when you were plodding with contempt through trigonometry homework and thinking to yourself “I will never use this”? Personally, I would rather have watched paint dry as I was never very adept at math. I don’t think I could count all my protruding body parts and get the same number twice. I am now man enough to admit that I was wrong. A little simple math can reveal the bee’s secret location.
Bees predominantly forage when the weather is nice so do not waste your time trying to do this in the rain. It takes honey to make honey!
Source: http://www.survivalblog.com/2012/07/bees-like-john-the-baptist-by-mike-the-bee-shepherd.html
