self-sufficiency

Lifestyle

Beekeepers – Honey Production in the Self-sufficiency Garden

October 26, 2025

If you walk around with open eyes, you will increasingly see beehives in private gardens. In recent years, beekeeping has become a hip hobby almost overnight, partly because it has been found that the food supply for honey bees is sometimes far greater in cities than in the country. Because there are often monocultures due to intensive agriculture, which after the harvest are like an empty plate for bees. Politicians are now taking countermeasures with the promotion of flower strips, but the large number of balcony plantings, allotment gardens, city gardens and city-tended flower beds as well as urban gardening projects and tree sponsorships usually still offer a greater variety and a food supply from spring to late summer/autumn.

Beekeeping – A hobby for everyone?

From 0 to 100

Basically, beekeeping is a hobby for everyone. Children are introduced to this form of animal husbandry in beekeeping associations and school projects, and as long as personal fitness plays along, there are no upper age limits.

For those who can no longer or do not want to lift that heavy, a box full of honeycombs can weigh up to 25 kg, there are appropriate solutions: boxes that are only half high and therefore only half as heavy or hive systems light styrofoam to reduce the base weight and of course the help of other beekeeping friends.

Beekeepers as allergy sufferers

Even those who are allergic to bees are not necessarily denied the hobby. There are protective suits and gloves that protect against stings and peoples bred to be gentle who are generally not in a bad mood when handled correctly. If you know that you are allergic to bee venom and that doesn’t deter you, then you should always have an emergency pen with you and inform fellow beekeepers.

Beekeepers without their own garden?

Even without your own garden and thus parking space for your bee colonies should not deter you. If you have a balcony, you can ask your property manager whether you are allowed to keep bees, as there are already systems designed for balconies.

Alternatively, you can ask around in your neighborhood via social media or the classic way with notices in the supermarket whether you can set up your bee colonies in someone’s private garden. There are now many who are open to it and to whom one or the other glass of honey is enough thanks.

Prerequisite for hobby beekeeping

Youtube is good, real discourse is better

In order to keep honey bees and produce honey as a hobby beekeeper, especially for your own use, no training is necessary, but you should be aware that you are dealing with living beings. While in most cases the bees themselves know best what is good for them, there are a few things you should know before getting any bees.

For example, ask your nearest beekeeping association whether they offer courses for newbies. Or ask long-established beekeepers if you can give them a hand and look over their shoulders. It’s important to be able to lend a hand and look inside the beehive, that’s the best way to learn and you have the professional on site to answer your questions.

Member of the beekeeping association and insurance

Similar to liability or household effects, you should also have insurance for your bee colony. If you are a member of the beekeepers’ association and only own a few hives, this is not a big investment and is usually billed together with the association fee.

Report to the Animal Disease Fund

As beekeepers are no longer located miles apart, diseases are more likely to spread more quickly. In order to identify locations in the area, to warn and, if necessary, to withdraw them from circulation, it is therefore absolutely necessary to register your colonies with the disease fund. However, the process is quite easy to complete using a form, which can usually be downloaded from the animal disease fund.

Basic equipment for beekeepers

If you want to start beekeeping, you need some basic equipment. There would be

The hives and frames

These are the dwellings for your bees. You can get these new in specialist shops and in different versions. When buying used, you should be careful, especially as a new beekeeper. The hives can contain remnants of pathogens or mites that are not good for your colony.

The protective clothing

Even if many bee colonies are bred to be gentle, a bee sting, especially on the face, is very unpleasant and a hat with a veil is affordable for protection. Special, thicker and, above all, long gloves are also recommended, as they prevent bees from crawling into your shirt sleeves and then stinging your arm or upper body out of claustrophobia. If you prefer to play it safe, you can wear tops with veils or even full-body suits. The latter are like a sauna suit in hot summers, but you have to think about what exactly you want to do with the beehive beforehand.

The tool

The most important utensils are a smoker and a stick chisel. With a smoker you produce smoke and pretend a forest fire to the bees. They retreat and gorge themselves on Hong to have enough energy in case they escape. Use the stick chisel to lift the frames out of the hive.

That brings you the hobby of beekeeping in a self-sufficient garden

Honey – the sweet, liquid gold

Of course, honey bees produce honey and very few hobby beekeepers keep bees without also having their own, self-produced honey in mind. If you want to be as self-sufficient as possible, honey is of course a sweet source of energy, which can also be used for your health in Oxymels, for example.

A strong colony can bring 20, 40 in good years also 60 kilograms of honey.

Attention: Anyone who wants to sell honey or just give it away as a gift must comply with the hygiene regulations when extracting and filling and labeling the honey jars with all the necessary information is required.

Propolis

There are people who swear by propolis as a panacea, whether as an admixture to honey or as a tincture for wounds.

Beeswax for DIY projects

Anyone who uses their own beeswax to make candles or beeswax wraps knows what’s inside. However, cleaning the wax is a bit time-consuming, which is why many hobby beekeepers do without it. The spun combs can also be reused. This saves the bees the time they need to build their own honeycomb and they can put their energy directly into caring for the brood and procuring food, and thus honey production. The longer the honeycomb is used, the darker it becomes because it is more contaminated. If you don’t want to melt them down yourself, they belong in the residual waste due to possible pest or disease contamination.

Pollinator performance

Of course, it’s not just the honey bees that pollinate our fruit and veg, but having them in your kitchen garden definitely can’t hurt. The work done by the flying helpers is priceless.

Deceleration and feelings of happiness

Keeping bees is usually more of a hobby and relaxation than work. The bees do most of the work without our intervention. We only check from time to time whether everything looks good, the queen is laying eggs and the brood is being cared for, whether we need to expand the brood chamber or honey chamber, whether pests such as the Varroa mite have settled in, harvest the honey and feed it Winter possibly too. The rest of the time we can watch the bees at work, relax with the steady buzzing and nibble the first honey straight from the honeycomb.

Keep Reading

Food

8 Self-sufficiency Tips That Anyone Can Implement

October 22, 2025

If you want to grow your own fruit and vegetables, you don’t have to live in the country – these tips for self-sufficiency also work in the city and sometimes even without a balcony.
Self-sufficiency is fun, you learn a lot and the lettuce you plant yourself or the laboriously watered tomatoes simply taste better – probably also because of your own work. You don’t have to switch to complete self-sufficiency right away – that would be difficult and very time-consuming. Even those who only produce a little themselves gain a little bit of independence.

Self-sufficiency basic: Grow your own vegetables

Sowing radishes, growing lettuce or planting tomatoes – many things also grow on the balcony in pots, tubs and boxes. If you want to start small with self-sufficiency, you can first try a herb garden on the balcony. Take a look at our picture gallery to see how you can grow your own vegetables without a garden.

But you can also bring edible greens into your own four walls with a herb shelf for the window sill or the wall and start self-sufficiency. And yes, you can even grow some vegetables in the apartment.

Do you need more space than the window sill or the balcony at home offers? There are many ways to bring at least a little more self-sufficiency into your life and grow your own fruit and vegetables: urban community gardens, shared gardens or solidarity agriculture are just three ways you can harvest fresh vegetables without a garden.

What to do with all the harvest? This “problem” is familiar to many who grow themselves on a larger scale. You can make jam out of strawberries, apples can be stored well for a long time – and your friends will surely be happy about home-grown fruit and vegetables.

Grow fruit

Not only lettuce, tomatoes or potatoes can thrive in a relatively small space – there are also types of fruit that you can grow on the balcony or terrace. You will not be able to be completely self-sufficient. But depending on how much space, creativity, and patience you have, you may well harvest some apples, strawberries, or even peaches.

If you happen to have more fruit than you can use, you can preserve some by making jam or syrup from it.

Pull sprouts

If you don’t have a garden or balcony, you can still start self-sufficiency in mini format – for example with self-grown sprouts. Crunchy sprouts from alfalfa, lentils, radishes or mung beans are high-quality foods rich in vitamins and minerals. Especially in winter, when there are few seasonal fruits and vegetables, sprouts enrich our diet.

Read how easy it is to grow sprouts and how at least a little self-sufficiency can be achieved with it.

By the way: It’s even easier to grow your own cress. All you need is a bag of organic cress seeds, a shallow bowl and some potting soil or cotton wool and water every day. Line the bowl with the potting soil or cotton, moisten it and sprinkle the cress seeds on top. Don’t forget to moisten the bowl daily. You can harvest fresh cress after about five to seven days. Tastes great in a salad or on bread!

Preserving Food – Self-Sufficiency Level: Advanced

Knowing how to preserve food is also part of self-sufficiency – it’s not that difficult. Fermenting, boiling down, pickling or drying used to be part of kitchen knowledge. Luckily, many people are acquiring this knowledge again today.

Here is an overview:

Preserving: Is particularly suitable for fresh fruit and vegetables and is a simple way of preserving seasonal produce for a long time.
Pickling: This is where food is preserved in liquid, using vinegar, oil or alcohol. Works well with most fruits, herbs and vegetables.
Drying: One of the oldest and simplest methods of preserving food. Especially good for fruit, vegetables, herbs, seeds, nuts, fish and meat.
Fermentation: is the conversion of substances by bacteria, fungi or enzymes. This produces gases, alcohol and acids, which ensure that food lasts.

Collect wild herbs, mushrooms and fruit

If you want a little more self-sufficiency, you can go wild-gathering in addition to your home-grown vegetables and fruits. The classic are wild herbs – even in the city you can find a lot here if you know something. However, we advise you to take a course first so that you can correctly identify the right herbs – i.e. the edible and tasty ones. For inspiration, here are 10 weeds you can eat.

In addition to lots of herbs, there is also a lot of wild fruit in Germany that you can collect – for example blackberries, elderberries, pear or sloes.

And last but not least, if you know your way around, you can make fat loot by collecting mushrooms in autumn. In the beginning, it is not easy to identify the different species with certainty. It is best to let experienced collectors accompany you. Mushroom tours, which can often be booked at adult education centers, are a great help. NABU also offers such excursions in many regions.

By the way, you can easily preserve collected mushrooms by drying or freezing the mushrooms.

Save public fruit

Another possibility for self-sufficiency: Use the public fruit trees in your area and pick the apples, pears or cherries for the next cake. So you not only save valuable fruit from rotting, you also take care of yourself.

On the map of Mundraub you can find fruit trees, fruit bushes, nuts and herbs and also mark them on the map yourself.

The Mundraub organization has been taking care of fruit trees in Germany since 2009 and planting new ones. Their vision: More edible cityscapes. In addition, Mundraub organizes harvest, planting and care campaigns and offers guided discovery tours for self-sufficient people.

Bake your own bread

Strictly speaking, of course, it only indirectly contributes to self-sufficiency – at least as long as you don’t grow your own grain and paint flour. Nevertheless: Baking your own bread regularly makes you a little more independent – and it’s fun.

Most bread recipes contain yeast from the supermarket. But baking with sourdough in particular is an old art of natural baking: without yeast and without artificial additives or emulsifiers. The basis for the bread, the sourdough, must first be prepared – alternatively, you can order sourdough starters online or ask around among friends and acquaintances if anyone would make a starter.

Integrate self-sufficiency into your everyday life

As you can see, self-sufficiency doesn’t have to mean that you live in the country and only spend time gardening. With many small steps you can at least integrate a little more self-sufficiency into your everyday life. You can already think about it while shopping: Do I really need it or can I not do it myself? For example, you no longer need to buy cress, with a small balcony herb garden you can also save on supermarket herbs and you can make delicious vegan spreads from pumpkins or zucchini that you grow yourself.