Last week we mentioned that North Dakota was on track to regain the title as the nation's #1 soybean producer which it lost for one year,
Now honey.
From AgriLife Today, yesterday:
Texas remained sixth in the nation for honey production in 2019, and is home to thousands of overwintering hives that contribute to the nation’s agricultural economy each growing season. Molly Keck, AgriLife Extension entomologist, Bexar County (San Antonio), said Texas beekeeping falls into three categories – hobbyists, sideliners and commercial.
Hobbyists are backyard beekeepers who keep bees, typically less than 10 hives, to meet Texas’ agriculture exemption for property taxes and/or to produce honey for their household, to share and/or sell locally. Sideliners typically have 50-250 hives but also maintain a full-time job.
“The plight of the honeybee and beekeeping to protect populations is a part of the increasing trend of hobbyist beekeepers,” Keck said. “But around 75% of the residents who participate in our Beekeeping 101 course are doing it to get that ag exemption with the bonus being honey for themselves and to share with family and friends and maybe sell at local farmers markets.”
Commercial beekeepers are those who keep 500 colonies or more. Their livelihood depends on bee husbandry and by moving large numbers of hives around the state and nation to pollinate crops and/or produce honey.
In Texas for instance, a commercial beekeeper may deliver hives in the Rio Grande Valley to pollinate watermelon fields and move those same hives to the Texas Plains to pollinate cotton later in the growing season. Then in the summer they may move their colonies to South Dakota or North Dakota for clover honey production.
The annual U.S. Department of Agriculture honey report in March 2019 showed 132,000 honey-producing colonies in Texas. By comparison, North Dakota, the No. 1 honey-producing state, reported 550,000 colonies.
Texas colonies produced 7.4 million pounds of honey in 2019, according to the USDA report. Total U.S. honey production topped 154 million pounds.
Even though the top honey-producing states are North Dakota and South Dakota, California, Florida and Minnesota, Rangel said thousands of those hives are based, or at least overwinter, in Texas as the state offers a mild winter climate for bees.
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Diwali
For planning purposes, Diwali falls on Saturday, November 14, this year (2020). A five-day Hindi festival, the big celebration is generally on the third of the five days, which this year is Saturday, November 14.
The celebration of sisters occurs on the fifth day, November 16, 2020. Sophia considers herself Anika's sister.
Anika lives in the apartment building two units down from our little hovel.
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Catcher In The Rye
First published in mid-July 1951 by Little, Brown and Company, Catcher in the Rye was simultaneously published as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. By the end of July [two weeks after initial publication], Little, Brown and Company was reprinting the novel for the fifth time, and by August, Catcher had reached fourth place on the New York Times best-seller list.
-- Salinger, David Shields and Shane Salerno, c. 2013, p. 271
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At One Time, Freddie Held The Record
Number of Appearances On American Bandstand
