There's More To North Dakota Than Oil -- March 22, 2016

The location is nowhere near the Bakken, but since folks in Manhattan and on Wall Street don't know that, I can tag this with the "Bakken economy." The Dickinson Press is reporting:

Construction is expected to begin in July on the long-awaited $2.3 million Pembina-Walsh Livestock Processing Plant.

The meat locker, which will be owned by area producers and other investors, should be operational by February or March of 2017.

When it reaches full production, the plant will have an annual capacity to slaughter 1,500 head of cattle, 1,000 hogs, 150 bison, 100 elk, as well as sheep.

With 42 investors, Wangler expects the number to increase to 55, including 30 livestock producers from around the region. Investors have committed about $350,000 toward the project. The group still is seeking additional investors.

The remaining part of the financial package is a mix of private and public funding, including $500,000 loans from Citizens State Bank of Lankin and the Bank of North Dakota.

Pretty cool. 

This is in the far northeast corner of the state, not all that far from the Canadian border, south-southeast of Winnipeg. Once they get the financing, things move along pretty quickly.

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Honey Of A Deal

Speaking of which -- there's more to North Dakota than oil -- how is the North Dakota honey industry doing? First, from Montana, The Great Falls Tribune is reporting:

In the world of honey bees, Montana is a haven, a refuge, a place for bees to recuperate and regain their strength after hard duty in the almond groves of California.
And along the way they make honey — a lot of it.

For decades, Montana has consistently ranked as one of the nation's top 10 honey-producing states. Long, warm summer days followed by cool nights, coupled with a diverse landscape of flowering crops, weeds and wildflowers makes Montana prime habitat for honey bees.

In the mid-1970s, Montana hives produced around 7.3 million pounds of honey annually. The state ranked seventh in the nation for honey production, well behind states like California and Florida with a nationally recognized reputation for honey.

In 40 years the state's honey production has more than doubled, making Montana the nation's second-leading honey producer, one slot back from North Dakota. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics, in 2013, Montana beekeepers harvested nearly 15 million pounds of honey — a harvest worth more than $31 million.

Today, honey ranks as Montana's 10th most valuable crop — more valuable than the state's entire production of canola, oats and cherries combined. And yet it is only a drop in the bucket.

Montana honey production is a mere sideshow to a global, multibillion dollar industry with its roots deep in Southern California soil.

"It's all about almonds," said Cam Lay, natural resource manager for the Montana Department of Agriculture. "Honey might pay some of the rent, but pollination makes the money."

Do you know why Montana moved to the #2 position behind North Dakota? We talked about it a long, long time ago. Global warming. I'm serious.

From the state government:

North Dakota is the #1 honey producing state in the nation. In 2014 North Dakota bees produced over 42 million pounds of honey valued at over $84 million.

I might provide some data points from this article later. It's a great article. Enjoy:

Honey in California and North Dakota, Part 1:

We made a mealy 100,000 pounds of honey on 10,000 hives and then made this epic walk in the wilderness, and made ¾ of million pounds off fewer hives. We made a little more and a little more and then went off this cliff where we couldn’t keep our hives alive and we couldn’t produce a honey crop. We got our count up and our crop went down, which began a series of really awkward conversations with my banker.

We spent a lot of time in North Dakota trying to pave it with corn and the areas that weren’t paved with corn we tried paving with soybeans. There 200,000 square miles of soybeans in America! It’s a lot. 128 million of acres, or 10% of that, of that in North Dakota is thin, poorly suited, highly erodible soil. A lot of it is native prairie. If you put $400 an acre into it, it can be corn. It almost covers their inputs. Those acres need to go back into a program like CRP (Crop Reduction Program), which is really good for the animals and the bees.

These poor prices for corn and soybeans may be driving farmers to make decisions about land use, but corn acreage in America is decided by Congress in America — not such a great idea. Things have changed inside the hives. In my career, it’s been the most tumultuous path of beekeeping since bees arrived in North America. We lose track of that because sometimes it feels like politics. You know that 123 pound average was tampered by 43 cent honey, which isn’t nearly as fun as $2 honey, right? It all works out.

Honey in California and North Dakota, Part 2:

Things have changed and here’s what we do now: the 10-wheeler moves 216 hives, which is exactly half of a semi and you can do it pretty quick if they all stay on the truck.

But I’m not doing a lot of the things mentioned earlier because I’m an industrial beekeeper. This is not a purgaric (sic) term. Two or three weeks ago, I had supper with Hannah Nordhaus — she wrote the book, The Beekeeper’s Lament — and she refers to American industrial beekeeping as not purgative (sic), it’s just what we do here that’s industrialized agriculture.

Drones and agriculture didn’t exist five years ago. We put a GoPro camera on a drone and put it up in the air, it documented the unloading of bees. It was May in North Dakota. If you look at the covers, there’s no paint! You can buy a cover from Used Pallet Company with a crappy pleat on the end for $1.70 and it’s made out of culled tomato bins so the paint won’t stick to it. You get ten years out of it for $1.70, which is 17 cents a year for this cover that I’m not going to repair. I used to drive to Arcada, CA to pick up 14-foot pieces of tongue and groove Redwood and we would make gorgeous bottoms and covers out of them. They lasted forever. Some are still in the outfit. They’re beautiful! But, they can’t compete with $1.70? Also, the question is: can they keep the rain out? The $1.70 does just as good a job as the $37.50 and the bees don’t care.

That must have been a helluva small GoPro camera to put on a drone -- those male hoenybees are incredible small, but they probably attached an auxiliary battery to the bees knees. LOL.

Don't say you never learn anything from this blog.