What Should I Do?

Some CM.com members may have become interested in beekeeping as one possible means of increasing resilience in their lives. In this What Should I Do (WSID) article, Small-Scale Beekeeping, user apismellifera gives a great introduction to the topic (the pictures are of Langstroth equipment; you may want to remember this for later in this article). In this article, we'll be getting a lot more specific about a particular task unique to winter beekeeping.

Beekeepers would, ideally, like to be able to winter our bees without supplemental feeding. Bees, after all, have been getting through winter far longer than humans have been managing bees. Bees, planning ahead, store honey and pollen specifically for this purpose. These days, with winter losses frequently hitting 30-40% of colonies dying each year, many of us are turning to feeding as a way of increasing our chances of getting to spring with live bees. Where Old Man Winter can keep temperatures down in the 20s (F) or below for extended periods of time, it's nice to have a way to get supplemental feeding to your bees without dealing with liquid syrup feeders. Liquid feeders, especially in cold temperatures, can potentially do harm by chilling your bees, which is clearly not what you set out to do when you decided to feed them. » Read more

Water is essential to life, for we cannot exist without it. We are running short of fresh, clean water in many parts of the USA. That is also the case in many other countries. Those who live in the northeastern quadrant of the lower 48 states are generally in good shape for now, water-wise, though there may be local issues with clean water in places. But as you travel west of the Mississippi, average annual rainfall drops off sharply, particularly in the desert southwest, which includes portions of the Chihuahua, Sonora, and Mohave Deserts.

The situation is particularly foreboding in the Colorado River Basin. There are more demands for the water than the river can reliably supply. Las Vegas is vulnerable to a water emergency, as are Phoenix and Tucson. Thirsty Los Angeles gets drinking water from far away Northern California via the California Aqueduct. As the podcast from a few weeks ago highlighted, water management and access is becoming an ever-increasing concern for many parts of the country.  » Read more

As the end of the calendar year approaches, we’ve asked our accountant to share his perspective on year-end tax steps that CM.com readers should consider. He’ has graciously accepted; though wants us to make it crystal clear this article is for educational purposes only. It is not actual tax advice -- which of course must be based on your own specific circumstances. Any action you may decide to take on these topics should be done, if possible, in careful consideration and collaboration with an accounting professional you trust.

In this post, I’ll provide a few checklists of year-end activities to help you:

• be aware of the range of deductions/tax breaks you’re legally entitled to
• avoid some common risks most taxpayers don’t realize they’re exposed to
• learn some useful tips if you own your own business or own alternative investments

Back in the summer, we posted about our need to expand the CM.com team by hiring a top-notch content manager. As we hope you have noticed, the amount of content on this site has substantially increased over the past six months (new contributing editors, more interviews, more posts from Chris, more What Should I Do? articles, etc.) and we realized we needed to bring another person onto the team to keep Chris and me from collapsing under the weight of it all.

After carefully pouring through the 100+ resumes we received and racking up hefty phone bills interviewing our excellent finalist candidates, we finally made our choice.

I'm thrilled to introduce our new content manager: Jason Wiskerchen. Please give him a warm CM.com welcome.

» Read more