People have been using resin for a long time. It can be used to make wood stain and varnish. Yeah, I know, that’s really exciting. So, let’s cut to the chase and list what it can do.
- First Aid: The sap is antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory. A hardened piece can be softened with heat and applied to a wound to help stop bleeding. If you chew it (softer pieces), it can treat sore throats and help with a cold.
- For fire and light: the resin burns, and can be used to make torches, fire starters, and makeshift candles. Read more on how to acquire a supply of fat wood for lighting fires in a snap.
- Glue: for patching holes and tears…also in skin, akin to super-glue on a cut (double use as first-aid there). You can mount heads on blowgun-darts, spears, and arrows with it.
There’s plenty to go around. You can gather it in the woods both hardened and soft. Be sure and use a container, preferably glass and not plastic to carry your resin. People harvest it by cutting v-shaped notches into the bark in rows parallel to one another. The resin then collects in the lowest one…a bucket or vessel is needed to catch it. Don’t go out and destroy or hurt live trees unless it’s a genuine survival situation. If it kills you to think about it, know that those who harvest it do so for 20 years or more with no overall ill effects on the tree.
Fossilized resin is known as amber and has been fashioned into jewelry. Many times, the amber trapped animals in it when it was still soft resin, such as bees, ants, and spiders…and they ended up being perfectly preserved…of great historical and scientific value. Pine tar, pitch, rosin, and turpentine can be made from pine tree resin, and although they are beyond the scope of this article, they are worth mentioning for your further research.
I’ve written articles on pine pollen and pine needle tea in the past. As you can see, the pine trees have many uses besides just building cabins and as fuel for fires that don’t immediately jump out at you. Learn to find and gather the resin and try to practice using it in the ways we covered here. This is good for your ongoing survival training and further sustaining yourself when the going gets tough and the only resources you have are what information you carry in your head and the skills to make it happen. JJ out!
Additional Reading:
Top 13 Uses for Pine Trees in Woodcraft and Self-Reliance
Did you know pine trees can be used as food, medicine and survival equipment?
16 Uses of Sticky Pine Sap for Wilderness Survival and Self-Reliance
Considering the fact that I live in the Upstate of South Carolina, this is a timely article. I have numerous pine trees on the property, of various ages. Guess I’ll start looking at what I considered an invasive species at one time to now an asset. Thanks for the article. Very informative.
Hello JJ, Thank you for this information. Great!
There are several kinds of pine trees.
Which one is this article About?
Kind regatds.
Moeniesch from Holland
🙏🏽
Damn, someone should just write up a PDF book on all the uses of pine trees. This is really good stuff. I actually did collect some resin from a tree in my backyard. I noticed something oozing out and I cut it away. I have it in a plastic container (peanut butter jar), so I don’t know if it’s been ruined or anything, but I will transfer the stuff into a glass jar.
I am very impressed with the website and the articles on here. I have nobody to talk too about survival or preparedness and there are never any seminars or conventions here.
The plastic leaches something like ‘fake estrogen’ into whatever is in it and it causes estrogen based cancers like prostate and breast. It’s a long time since I read about it but it’s pretty close to exactly like I said it. I’m bewildered that they’re allowed to sell us food in plastic containers. You can still use it to practice emergency candles and firestarter.
I remember my great grandmother foraging and chewing it when I was a kid, I thought it was just because she liked it, I didn’t know it had healing purposes
We used to break if off and chew it like gum. It would be crumbly at first they change into gum texture.
If you look and see what covid-19 takes out of you pine needles and pine nuts will replace all of that back therefore it cures the Cobra 19 just make sure you don’t get the pine trees that is poison