T'is why you make hay while the summer sun shines.
A bee farm is definitely worth the effort in the long run. Honey-lathered crock pot recipes thrown in a fridge last a real long time, even in the summer. It's also a good filler for random recipes, so foodwise it frees up a lot of time you'd spend foraging/lessens the need for a gigantic berry farm. Honey Poultice is a bonus, and sweets for restoring sanity make farming Nightmare Fuel/beard hair when playin' as not-Wilson a lot safer too. But yeah, it is pretty time consuming... and only works for half a year. If ya get one workin' right 'fore your first Winter you'll be ****in' (honey) golden in the long run, but all'a that time spent might make said first Winter a frozen hell to live through. The end result is either death, or huge payout.
Get a good enough start, rush a log suit/Bug net and you can pretty much get one within a week. As for food, I've just been cramming Meaty Stew's in the fridge, they tend to last a good amount of time before going stale and honestly I always find my Meat/Berry ratio to be around 2/1. Koelaphants just seem to be magnetized to me.