Gardening and Self-Sufficiency, Honey Bees and Fish

Honey Bees

It is ironic how nowadays city beekeepers prosper more than their country cousins. The cities have caused a poverty of country wildlife by incessant taking of land for roads, building and for more food production. There are now so few areas of uncultivated land and wildflowers that many county beekeepers despair, while city gardens are filling with expensively planted flowers. Urban beekeepers also find that the shelter and warmth from all the buildings extends the honey season by many weeks. 
Bees are an ideal occupation for someone with a small garden and who is good at slow, gentle movements and taking methodical care. The amount of work is not great, but it must be done at the right date and often at the right time of day so it suits the retired. A modest investment will set you up with honey and beeswax for life. You can also spend a lot of time just watching bees. If you have the space, you can help them by planting the right sort of flowers, and thereby increase the quality and flavour of your honey. Bees do not use their sense of smell much and tend to go for blue or white flowers, though other colours are not excluded.
Trees and shrubs have also come to depend on bees, and limes are well known for filling hives with honey. 
Most members of the following families are good for bees, but avoid sterile, double flowered varieties:
Acer, Aesculus, Alnus, Berberis, Betula, Caragana, Catalpa, Ceanothus, Cercis, Chaenomeles, Cistus, Cotoneaster, Crataegus, Daphne, Eleagnus, Escallonia, Fagus, Fraxinus, fuchsia, Hedera, Hypericum, Ilex, Laurus, Liquidambar, Liriodendron, Malus, Mespilus, Olearia, Perowskia, Physiocarpus, Populus, Potentilla, Prunus, Pyracantha, Quercus, Rhamnus, Rhus, Ribes, Robinia, Rosmarinus, Rubus, Salix, Senecio, Skimmia, Sorbus, Spiraea, Symphoricarpus, Syringa, Tamarix, Tillia, Ulex, Viburnum and Weigela.
In the vegetable and fruit garden, leave unwanted brassicas, leeks and onions to go to flower as bees love these. Strawberries, especially the alpine ones, are always popular, but raspberries, blackberries and their hybrids are favourite. Clovers sown in sward and as groundcover or green manure are one of the biggest yielders of honey. On farms, field bean and oilseed rape are the largest sources. Sweet basil, summer savory, lemon balm, and the mints are all much loved. On a cost effective basis, the mints are probably the best for large areas as they spread so well.


... and Fish

Well, why not? I have goldfish in my water butts to keep down the gnat larvae and they breed up and produce a surplus.
Unfortunately goldfish are not tasty and are bony, even the cats refuse them and most other cold water fish that could be kept are not great meals. Tasty fish like trout need sparkling running water. However, they used to have fish ponds in the Dark Ages and in the East, so it may be worth pursuing. Certainly many cunning schemes have centred around alternating sunken livestock grazing meadows with ponds every couple of years. Fish and livestock have different parasites; the fertility left in the mud grows good grass; and, when flooded, grassland produces rich food for fish.


Related articles: 


Gardening and Four-Legged Friends
Gardening and Self-Sufficiency


Related sites:


www.gardeninginfozone.com 
www.yourgardeninginfo.com 
www.thegardeningbible.com