Just curious who else is living super frugal

[mickey328]

Won't even pretend to empathize, cuz I've never been through anything so traumatic, but I do sympathize. The mind is a powerful but strange thing; if only we could have the subconscious be as straight forward as the conscious. I'm very glad that most of you made it back and can only offer encouragement and hope that this episode passes quickly for you, and am really glad you have Snickers. I do suffer from depression and discovered long ago that an animal companion can fill a "hole" somewhere that all the meds and counselling in the world just don't reach. Kudos to you for hanging in

Oh, and I'm a Canuck by adoption not by birth...and Monty was never one of my faves,

 

[HeatherLynn]

You can build a hive for not very much called a top bar hive. You'd still have to buy the queen and bees unless you know someone who would "give" you one. We wanted a hive too, but can't have one where we live. So we're growing sorghum to make syrup from for sweetening stuff. Lot less allergy problems too ...

I cannot remember the website but they have hints on how to attract bees to your top bar hives. I think like lemon grass oil or something. It might have been in backyardhive.com forums maybe? not sure. Anywho its on our list too. Not sure when we will get to it though. Struggling to wade through these to do lists I swear. Doing for yourself is cheaper but SOOOO time consuming. We sometimes forget to factor that in.

 

[DennisK]

Not Me! I can bore a log to sleep! The hard part is that Lydia has the power to have me committed so I've got to watch my "Ps and Qs". Or is it "Js and Ks"? No, no, it's "Bs and3s", I'm sure of it. Or at least I think I'm sure, what was the air speed of an unladen european swallow again?

~S

P.S. I have been having a hard time lately, so I tend to compensate with humor. Bad humor I suppose. But that's what i have to cope with. Hope I haven't offended anyone. Scott

Your humor reminds me of Robin Williams’ style of humor – lots of energy! It’s great that you have that to call upon when you need it.

 

[zzGypsy]

You can build a hive for not very much called a top bar hive. You'd still have to buy the queen and bees unless you know someone who would "give" you one. We wanted a hive too, but can't have one where we live. So we're growing sorghum to make syrup from for sweetening stuff. Lot less allergy problems too ...

you can always put your name out there to pick up swarms - those bees are free. or do a cutout where bees have gotten into a building. not guaranteed to get the queen on a cutout, but you might. or joing the local beekeepers group, trade some labor for a nuc. there are frugal ways to get started. I bought my first two hives as package bees, and got the next 20 hives as swarms and cutouts. (ok, I don't have that many now, sold my CA bees when I moved out of CA. starting over with MO bees.)

 

[ScottnLydia]

How could I tell if I even have enough forage for bees? Like I've said, I live in an arid area where there is little if anything blooming, and no irrigation water to grow anything. I put an ad in the local paper to see if there was a local beekeeping group or individual that could advise me, but no response to date.

Still just in the curiosity phase. Hay has me worried. Currently at $14 to $15 a bale and rising!

~S

 

[mickey328]

I know of 1 place just a few miles up the road who has hives and produces honey, and we're pretty dry here too. Not sure how far, but I do know they'll go a long way to collect what they need. Of course, spring is better when all the stuff is blooming.

 

[zzGypsy]

How could I tell if I even have enough forage for bees? Like I've said, I live in an arid area where there is little if anything blooming, and no irrigation water to grow anything. I put an ad in the local paper to see if there was a local beekeeping group or individual that could advise me, but no response to date.

Still just in the curiosity phase. Hay has me worried. Currently at $14 to $15 a bale and rising!

~S

yeah, around here it's the 2-wire 50-60 lb bales and they're going for $11 (ouch!)

I kept bees in the high desert of So. Cal, and that's pretty arid...

How to know if there's enough forage for bees?
bees will readily travel 3 miles for forage, and sometimes as much as 5 miles. so look on google earth and see if you can identify any crops or hay or natural forages within a 5 mile radius of where you live. if you've got an extension office in your county, you could call them and see if they have any info on what's local forage. contact the state beekeeper's org and see if they can refer you to anyone in your area, or in an area with similar climate/flora.

when I lived in CO, I didn't do bees, but I remember alfalfa, clover, mustard, sweetflag, owl clover, lots of wild flowers, buckwheat, sumac and other wild plants that bees forage. I seem to recall seeing mesquite honey, so that might be another. don't know about sage brush, but I've seen sage honey, so that might be one too. in addition, many crops including alfalfa, corn, squash, tomato, pumpkin, cucumber, melons, peas, beans, most kitchen herbs, strawberries and most tree fruits and some nuts are good for bees. ragweed is another posibility. some flowering yard ornamentals are good sources.

here in MO where I live now we have a very plentiful spring, a zero-forage summer, and, if we get rain, a fall forage season that makes honey too strongly flavored for most folks' taste (so we sometimes leave that for the bees to winter on). if we don't get a fall rain (like last year) we end up feeding the bees for the fall and winter (unless we took no honey off at the end of the spring flow.) I keep bees to pollenate my garden first, and provide honey second, so my management is different than someone who wants them for the honey. because you have longer colder winters, you'll need to manage them so you leave enough supply on board to take them through the winter.

something to watch out for in your potential forage area: GMO crops that are "roundup ready" may cause problems for bees (some speculative evidence that they contribute to colony collapse) so you might want to know more about the crops being planted if you have some near by. local farmers who spray their crops with insecticides are another issue to pay attention to.

in the CA high desert I suplemented my bees with feeding only if the hives were light going into the winter. mostly they did just fine on wild radish, mustard and other wildflowers, mulberry, sage, buckwheat, and a few small home orchards and gardens within a few miles of me.

 

[ScottnLydia]

Yeah, we're about 4 miles from the Arkansas river, that's where most of the apple orchards and truck farmers are. Closer to us are a few homes with random fruit trees and small, home gardens. Proximal to us is (are? am?) mesquite and sage, though. What about tumbleweeds? I grow them in abundance! Lucky the sheep like them, eh?

I planted a few honey locusts but at this rate they may never reach flowering stage!

Getting back to the 'frugal' theme, does anybody else buy meat in the large 'family' packs, then re-package and freeze the smaller portions? We also get chuck roast on sale and grind it into hamburger. This way we know that it has no fillers, or 'pink slime', and we know the 'sell-by' date. We control the fat content and it tastes better too.

On that same vein, we get pork shoulders (in bulk) for green chile and sausage. All you need for sausage is a good recipe and ground pork, shoulder is the best!

I think 'frugal' should include quality. My father-in-law, when he was alive, was so cheap he could pinch a penny 'til a booger popped out of Lincolns nose! But he never understood the English phrase; "Penny wise, Pound foolish." (In American; Penny wise, DOLLAR foolish.) Yup, He was the guy that would drive 60 mile round trip to another town because he could top off his tank for a penny a gallon less! He bought the CHEAPEST hamburger meat, even though half of it melted and had to be drained out of the pan. He saved 10 cents a pound for meat that shrank to half.

When we grind a chuck roast, we trim a little fat out. But even if we don't, the meat STILL has much less fat than the lean pre-ground from the store, and it doesn't shrink much at all. But it's the flavor, it's so rich and beefy! Again, if you're spending the money anyway, get the MOST for it. To me, that's true frugality.

~S

 

[HeatherLynn]

warning though. if you are near commercial apple orchards your bees probably won't make it. My brother has several colonies going well for like 10 years. An orchard bought up some farm land about a mile down the road from him to expand. Of course they have to spray. Not one bee left. He is considering moving some down in our lower field because there is miles and miles of nothing down there. Just woods and unused field from a neighbor.

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
I think this is key when thinking of buying meats, dairy and eggs from the store, bargain and bulk or not. Eating those foods that have been produced commercially merely leads to health problems over time...which leads to higher health care cost for you and the family= NO SAVINGS. With today's food supplies, it's hard to avoid all the stuff that they put in the foods but these items, in particular, are staples in the American diet and we know what is in them....and none of it's good.

What good is nutrition and calories if they cause poor health in the eating of them? The hidden costs of eating commercially grown foods is much higher than the savings garnered from getting a bargain on bulk meats.

Growing and processing your own meat animals or going co-op with someone that does is a good idea if you want real savings. I can grow out 50 meat birds on healthier feeds and free range for around $1.11 per lb and place around 200-250 lbs of meat in the jar and freezer. That's all natural, free ranged chicken that was healthy all their lives and didn't have to be killed in a hurry before they died anyway from bad health. If you must eat meat, eat quality meat. If not quality, give it a pass...you'll be paying for it even more down the road in health cost if you don't.