150 Million Driver's Licenses Stolen in ID Verification Breach

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The Ready Brief #194

Practical preparedness for uncertain times

A beekeeper friend gave me a jar of honey from his backyard hive. It was darker, thicker, and more complex than anything from a store. He told me the bees produced about 60 pounds of surplus honey that year from two hives, enough for his family and a dozen jars to give away. Those two hives also pollinated his garden, increasing his vegetable yield by roughly 30%. Bees are the only livestock that improve everything around them while producing a food that literally never expires.

Here's what I've got this week.

Backyard Bees: Honey, Pollination, and Infinite Shelf Life

We covered chickens (Issue 146) and aquaponics (Issue 126). This week introduces beekeeping, the most low-maintenance form of food-producing animal husbandry and the only one that generates a product with an indefinite shelf life.

Honey doesn't expire. Its low moisture content and natural acidity make it inhospitable to bacteria and mold. Properly stored honey from 3,000 years ago has been found edible. For preparedness, honey is the ultimate stored sweetener: calorie-dense (64 calories per tablespoon), antimicrobial (useful for wound care, Issue 169), and permanent.

A productive backyard hive produces 30 to 60 pounds of surplus honey per year (the amount above what the bees need for their own winter survival). At store prices ($8 to $12 per pound for quality honey), that's $240 to $720 worth of product annually from an initial investment of about $300 to $500.

Startup costs: a hive kit (hive body, frames, bottom board, covers) runs $150 to $250. A package of bees with a queen costs $150 to $200. Basic equipment (suit, gloves, smoker, hive tool) costs $100 to $150. Total first-year investment: $400 to $600. Subsequent years cost very little (replacement frames, occasional queen).

Check local regulations first. Most municipalities allow backyard beekeeping, but some require registration, and setback requirements from property lines vary. Your state apiary inspector (every state has one) can provide local regulations and guidance.

Time commitment is modest: about 30 minutes of inspection per hive every 1 to 2 weeks during active season (spring through fall) and minimal attention during winter. Bees are largely self-managing. You're monitoring for disease, queen health, and adequate space.

The pollination benefit is significant and often overlooked. A beehive within 2 miles of a garden dramatically increases pollination of fruiting vegetables (tomatoes, squash, peppers, beans). Gardeners with nearby hives consistently report yield increases.

Beeswax is a secondary product useful for candle making, wood finish, leather conditioning, and homemade skin care. Each harvested frame yields a meaningful amount of wax alongside the honey.

Contact your local beekeeping association and ask about beginner classes.

Most counties have a beekeeping association that offers spring beginner courses ($50 to $100) covering hive setup, bee management, and honey harvesting. Some offer mentor programs that pair new beekeepers with experienced ones for the first year.

Backyard Beekeepers Are Losing Half Their Hives

The 2025 to 2026 national beekeeping survey, run by Auburn University, Oregon State University, and the Apiary Inspectors of America, found beekeepers lost 39.9% of their colonies on average, down from 55.6% the year before but still more than double the 15% to 20% loss rate the industry considers sustainable. Hobbyist and backyard operations lost more than commercial ones this year, the opposite of the usual pattern, and winter losses (30.3%) outpaced summer losses. If you are weighing whether to start a hive, budget for the real chance you will lose it and have to restart, rather than buying more bees than you can afford to lose twice.

Source: Auburn University

Cody Lundin's Aboriginal Living Skills School uses honey as both a food staple and a medical supply. In When All Hell Breaks Loose, he identifies honey as one of the few foods that serves triple duty: caloric energy, wound treatment (its osmotic and antimicrobial properties promote healing), and morale (sweetness in an otherwise austere diet).

Lundin considers beekeeping an advanced but high-value preparedness skill: the initial learning curve is real, but once established, a hive produces food, medicine, and wax with minimal ongoing input.

When All Hell Breaks Loose by Cody Lundin. About $14 for the paperback.

150 Million Driver's Licenses Stolen in ID Verification Breach

IDScan, a Louisiana based identity verification service used by bars, cannabis dispensaries, and other age restricted businesses, confirmed on September 10 that hackers stole full names, driver's license numbers, and license photos for more than 150 million people across the US and Canada. Security journalist Brian Krebs first reported the breach on September 1. High profile victims reportedly include US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and the company says full access to the stolen data required payment, suggesting it is being sold or held for ransom.

Your driver's license number and photo are now sitting in a criminal database whether or not you ever did business with a company that used IDScan. Freeze your credit at all three bureaus, watch for new accounts opened in your name, and ask your state DMV whether you can request a new license number.

Source: TechCrunch

Observation Only (Mentored Learning Year)

I haven't started my own hive yet. Instead, I'm spending this year shadowing my beekeeper friend during his monthly hive inspections. I've attended 7 inspections so far, learning hive anatomy, queen identification, disease recognition, and harvest timing without the financial commitment of my own hive.

The mentored approach costs nothing (most experienced beekeepers welcome interested observers) and provides hands-on learning that classes alone can't replicate. I plan to start my own hive next spring with a foundation of practical knowledge. Free.

Budget alternative: Watch beekeeping YouTube channels (University of Guelph Honey Bee Research Centre has excellent free content) and read your state extension office's beekeeping guides (free).

Overrated: Flow hives (hives with built-in honey taps) for beginners. They're expensive ($600+) and skip the inspection and management skills that beginners need to develop. A standard Langstroth hive teaches you beekeeping. A flow hive teaches you honey extraction.

Underrated: Honey as a wound treatment. Medical-grade honey (Manuka) is used in hospitals for wound care. Regular honey applied to minor cuts and burns provides antimicrobial protection and promotes healing. It's been used this way for thousands of years.

Mesh Wi-Fi and home network resilience. Keeping your internet and local network functional during partial infrastructure failures.

PS: My beekeeper friend's two hives produced 65 pounds of honey last year. He kept 20 pounds, gave away 30, and sold 15 at a farmers market for $10 per pound. The bees fed him, supplied gifts, and generated $150 in income. The initial investment was $500 three years ago. The bees have paid for themselves twice over. And the honey in his pantry will outlast everything else on the shelf.