When I was first starting out, I spent a lot of time at the BeeSource forums. I haven’t been there in a while, so I don’t know how it currently is, but I found it a good resource initially. FWIW, I always found the beekeeping-related subreddits to be pretty hit and miss.

There are tons of books available, possibly from your local library, but some are better than others. Wicwas press has a lot of good books, but I think they skew more towards advanced beginner and later, rather than the basic beginner.

But most importantly, there’s a saying that “all beekeeping is local”. While the basics are generally the same everywhere, the specifics vary depending on location. Not only things like temperature, humidity, and rainfall, but also what kinds of plants bloom, when and how often.

So regardless of any reading or other research you do, one of the best things you can do to learn is join a local beekeeping club. There will surely be members that have been there for a while, and you can learn from them what really works in your area.

Also, if you’re in the US, check with your local Ag Extension office. They may have resources or info to help you get started. Possibly even classes.

I’d start with local apiaries and/or small/mid scale beekeepers.

The trick will be finding one that will let you buy a smaller quantity (relatively speaking - you probably don’t want multiple 55 gallon drums of honey) at near-wholesale prices.

This might be tough, because small scale (hobbyist or side-gig) beekeepers often charge a premium because they’re not producing a lot, and value the hard work they put into what they did get.

On the flip side, larger outfits will likely already have contracts with a reseller, and may not want to bother with selling a mere 50-100 lbs as a one-off.

A good place to ask around might be a local beekeeping club/meetup. It would at least let you meet some of your local beeks, and maybe determine which are retail-only and which do wholesale.

Unfortunately, I’ve really scaled back my number of hives and now only get enough honey to keep my immediate family supplied.

But I appreciate the sentiment.

Beekeeper here. I won’t comment on whether or not you should. But since I know a little about storing honey, here are some things to consider:

If you do this, you need to make sure it’s sealed in airtight containers.

Part of what gives honey its antimicrobial properties (and long shelf life) is its low moisture content. But it’s hygroscopic and will pull moisture directly from the air if exposed. After it pulls enough moisture, it can ferment, grow bacteria, or otherwise not be fit for normal consumption.

Also, honey can crystallize over time. This doesn’t mean it’s bad, but in order to re-liquify it, you’ll need to heat it. So consider your storage container size and material carefully.

That said, 52 lbs is less than a 5 gallon bucket full (at roughly 12 lbs / gallon), so it shouldn’t take an incredible amount of space if you choose to do it. Or, in smaller portions, a quart mason jar will hold about 3 lbs. So 2 cases (12 jars each) would exceed your quantity requirements, and be more manageable than a 60lb bucket.

Also if you can buy it in bulk at wholesale prices, it will be cheaper. Retail can be anywhere from $5-$20 per pound (depending on what/where) whereas the last I checked, wholesale prices were more like $1.50 - $3.50 per pound, depending on quantity.

Hope that helps.

I have an Anova, and I like it, but I wouldn’t consider it BIFL. After a few years, the manual controls are getting dodgy and it’s getting difficult to use without the app, which they’ve started charging for:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/08/smart-sous-vide-cooker-to-start-charging-2-month-for-10-year-old-companion-app/

But I think you’re spot on with your other general recommendations.

Then you’ll love this new product that’s guaranteed* to reduce the amount of advertising you’re exposed to!

*Warning: may cause blindness, loss of hearing, and inability to leave your room.

But in all seriousness… I hate it, too. It’s fucking everywhere.

Back in the 90s, Windows NT had a POSIX compatibility layer that you could enable (it wasn’t enabled by default).

I have sort of had enough of copy and pasting commands I find on the internet without having a good understanding of how they actually work.

One thing you could do is start trying to understand those commands.

Read the man pages or the documentation to figure out what the commands are actually doing. Once you have the “what” , you can dig deeper to get to the “why” if it isn’t obvious by that point.

After enough of that, you’ll go to copy/paste and already understand what it’s doing without needing to look it up again.

Then from there, it’s a matter of building the instinct to be able to say “I need to do X, so I’ll use commands Y and Z.”

The longer the distance, the larger the diameter of the wire you need, due to resistance/heat.

Typically, extension cords are going to be manufactured with the thinnest wire they can get away with based on the safety requirements, in order to save on materials cost.

So plugging 2 short cords together might cover the same distance as 1 longer cord, but the longer cord will use thicker wire to maintain the proper margin of safety.

Might be fiddler

I’m not personally a fan of jalapenos, but pineapple and banana pepper is also a really good combo for sweet/tangy.

At least they don’t have herpes.

The Call of Cthulhu TTRPG.

Debian is on a roughly 2 year release cycle, and typically has a 6 month (-ish) freeze leading up to the release. So software in the stable release will generally be somewhere between 6 months and 2 years out of date. (My math might be a bit off but hopefully you get the idea).

Ultimately, it comes down to how you use your system, and what you need/want from your software. What you consider to be “the things that matter” will really be the deciding factor here. Need the occasional newer version of an application or library? It’s probably fine. Need the latest, greatest desktop environment? You may want to pass.

There are a number of ways to install newer versions. Backports, if it has what you want, is the easiest and safest.

There are other ways as well, but depending on what method you choose and what software it is, you may need to be careful not to break something. (I’d recommend not adding random third-party deb repositories for this reason).

Flatpak seems reasonable, but I haven’t used it much (once or twice I think). I typically use backports, or occasionally do my own local backports from sid.

Snap and AppImage are also possibilities. I don’t use snap, and I think I installed something proprietary by AppImage exactly once.

If it’s not in Debian at all, then I need to handle that a bit differently. But to me that’s a different issue than the ‘old version’ issue that Debian is often derided for.

Anecdotally, I’ve been daily-driving Debian stable (including for gaming) for over 20 years, and it suits my needs well. But of course, YMMV.

My wife got a sleep headband with Bluetooth from some random Chinese company on Amazon. So far she’s been pretty happy with it, though she’s mostly a back sleeper. She says when she sleeps on her side, sometimes the headphone part bothers her and sometimes it doesn’t. So YMMV. If you want the exact brand I can ask her, though I expect most of the brands are selling the same thing.

Maybe you’re right. I get all confused when it’s not in Möbius order.

To expand on this… Part of what happens to the nectar inside the bee’s honey crop is the addition of various enzymes (IIRC invertase is one. I don’t recall any of the others) that modify the sugars and other compounds in the nectar.

So nectar goes in, the result of nectar + enzymes comes out, then it’s dried until the moisture content is low enough (~18% is what I was told as a beekeeper. Who knows how the bees measure it…)

Not to be all “Well ackchyually” but most (maybe all?) of the moisture reduction happens after the nectar has been stored in the comb, but before it has been capped with wax for storage. So the bottom two panels are out of order.

Also, if anyone cares, the term for the mouth-to-mouth passing of the nectar is trophallaxis.

We used to feed our cats almost entirely dry food, with wet food as an occasional treat (no real schedule for wet, just every now and then).

But over the years we’ve had a number of cats that had health issues that were mitigated by switching to mostly wet food.

So now it’s reversed- almost entirely wet food with dry food occasionally (every couple of days or so). At least, for our indoor cats.

We also take care of a feral colony (many of which we’ve TNR’d), and those cats get dry food for logistical and cost reasons.