North Dakota Continues To Lead Nation In Honey Production -- October 21, 2020

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.

*********************************
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. 

************************************
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

*****************************************
At One Time, Freddie Held The Record
Number of Appearances On American Bandstand

Palisades Park, Freddie Cannon

A Random Look At Slawson's Wolf Well In Van Hook (Big Bend), #17505 -- August 2, 2017

On/about April 15, 2016, Slawson requested to place this well on the TA (temporary abandon) list for economic reasons, saying it would bring the well back to active (A) status once economic conditions improved. The NDIC denied the request on/about May, 2016. Check to see what happened next.

This well was shut-in for 24 months or so, before finally coming back on line.

• 17505, 309, Slawson, Wolf 1-4H, Van Hook (I believe this is an error; it looks like it is in Big Bend); t7/09; cum 198K 6/17; API: 33-061-00823.

***********************************

Bees Back From The Brink

That's the theme of the Bloomberg article. Things aren't quite that simple, but here's the lede:

The number of U.S. honeybees, a critical component to agricultural production, rose in 2017 from a year earlier, and deaths of the insects attributed to a mysterious malady that’s affected hives in North America and Europe declined, according a U.S. Department of Agriculture honeybee health survey released Tuesday.

The number of commercial U.S. honeybee colonies rose 3 percent to 2.89 million as of April 1, 2017 compared with a year earlier, the Agriculture Department reported. The number of hives lost to Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon of disappearing bees that has raised concerns among farmers and scientists for a decade, was 84,430 in this year’s first quarter, down 27 percent from a year earlier. Year-over-year losses declined by the same percentage in April through June, the most recent data in the survey.

Still, more than two-fifths of beekeepers said mites were harming their hives, and with pesticides and other factors still stressing bees, the overall increase is largely the result of constant replenishment of losses, the study showed.

No comment. I get it.

The Energy And Market Page, T+62 -- March 23, 2017

Late-Morning Trading

After being down at the opening and flat most of the morning, all of a sudden the market is up 53 points. Is this the first indication that the US House might have the votes for the RyanTrumpHealthCareBill? Now up 67 points (10:15 a.m. Central Time).

WTI: about 25 cents below $48.

***************************

Original Post

 
Top story for the day: North Dakota continues to lead in honey production -- 13th consecutive year -- no contest, see chart below. Peak honey? What peak honey? Data points:

• ND producers with five or more colonies made almost 38 million pounds, up 4% from previous year
• 485,000 honey-producing colonies: average yield up four pounds to 78 pounds per colony
• prices about the same: $1.73 (2016) vs $1.80 (2015)

Futures: holding steady despite incredible headwinds, including recent terrorist attack in Great Britain. In the "old" days these things really spooked traders.

Fargo-Moorhead population growth: continues to grow; closing in on 240,000.

Oil patch job fair: sounds like it was an overwhelming success.

**************************************

Honey Production

By state, from Bee Culture, 2015 data: ND, SD, MT, FL, MN, CA. 

Northern Lights Honey, Fresh Palate, Main Street, Williston, North Dakota -- October 1, 2016

Okay, this is really, really cool.

I just got back from five days in the Bakken. I drove up from Grapevine, TX, to Williston, ND, last week, leaving on a Tuesday morning and arriving there Wednesday evening, exactly 1,400 miles.

I arrived in Grand Island, NE, at 23:45 p.m. Central Time (in fact all times will be reported in Central Time), on Tuesday night, September 20, and then drove a bit farther east, sleeping under the stars in/near Thetford, NE, near Broken Bow, NE. I woke up about 5:15 a.m. and pressed on.  (Shortly after getting to sleep, a very, very nice Nebraska state trooper stopped by and asked if I was doing okay. I was and he suggested a better location for sleeping under the stars -- he thought my location between the railroad tracks and the highway was a bit dangerous. He was not worried about trains de-railing; he was concerned about all the cattle trucks that were on the road in the middle of the night. And there were a lot; it must be easier to haul cattle during the night than during the day. I don't know.)

It was an incredible trip and over the next few days I will post some photo-essays on the trip. Our younger daughter, Laura, Amtrak'd in from Portland, Oregon, and spent four days with me in the Bakken.

Main Street, Williston, is quite incredible. I had trouble finding a parking spot on Main Street and the side streets immediately off Main Street on Sunday when Laura and I window-shopped. A few stores were open. We went back during the week and stopped at many downtown stores. Lots of fun.

High on the list was the organic grocery store, Fresh Palate, on the 2nd floor of the building that also has the pharmacy across from JC Penney. That building has many boutique stores and a very interesting, high-end Italian restaurant open only for dinner. There were signs that they would soon be serving lunch.

It should be noted -- and I had forgotten this -- that in that part of the world, the main meal is at noon and is called dinner. The evening meal is called supper. It's been so long since I last lived there that I had forgotten. For me, it's breakfast, lunch, and dinner, in that order. Or break, mid-morning snack, lunch, later afternoon Scotch and herring, dinner, and then several dessert options before going to bed.

But I digress.

At Fresh Palate, I noted North Dakota honey offered by Northern Lights, aka Vanessa Huelsman. I have never met her but Chuck Wilder at Books on Broadway knew her. Ms Huelsman had just dropped off a new batch of honey that morning -- the bottles of honey I got could not have been more fresh. Chuck says Ms Huelsman / Northern Lights has corporate headquarters in Wildrose, ND. 

Regular readers know that North Dakota is ranked #1 in honey production. In the back country north and west of Tioga we saw a lot of bee hives -- I assume many (most?) of them belonged to Ms Huelsman.

Both Northern Lights and Fresh Palate have a facebook page, and they both have other sites to visit if googled.

Northern Lights facebook page. 

Fresh Palate facebook page.

I had toast and honey with Drambuie (Scotch and honey) as soon as I got back home to Grapevine (yesterday afternoon, at exactly 2:00 p.m.).

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.

******************************

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. 

Warren Buffett Continues To Buy Phillips 66 -- January 18, 2016

Forbes reported on January 12, 2016:

Warren Buffett continues to build his stake in Phillips 66 PSX, reporting Monday his third purchase filing this month.

Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway said it bought 1,645,887 shares of the company on January 7, 2016, at prices ranging from $76.45 to $78.01 per share. This represents a 2.64% increase from the number of shares Buffett owned the day before.

The purchase also shows Buffett’s growing interest in the company. It follows a 107% increase to his holding in the third quarter, a total 0.08% increase January 4 and January 5, 2016, and 1.23% increase January 6, 2016.

His Phillips 66 holding now totals 63,940,380 shares.

There are about 535 million PSX shares outstanding. 64/535 = almost 12%.

I was sure that I had posted this on the blog, but when looking for it, I couldn't find it. This is for the archives. This is not an investment, financial, or travel site; do not make any investment, financial, or travel decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. If this important to you, go to the source.

Not only might Warren be getting his oil for free, producers might be paying him as much as 50 cents/bbl to take their product away -- they simply have too much. Bloomberg is reporting:

Flint Hills Resources LLC, the refining arm of billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch’s industrial empire, said it would pay -$0.50 a barrel Friday for North Dakota Sour, a high-sulfur grade of crude, according to a list price posted on its website.

That’s down from $13.50 a barrel a year ago and $47.60 in January 2014. While the negative price is due to the lack of pipeline capacity for a particular variety of ultra low quality crude, it underscores how dire things are in the U.S. oil patch.

U.S. benchmark oil prices have collapsed more than 70 percent in the past 18 months and fell below $30 a barrel for the first time in 12 years last week. West Texas Intermediate traded at $29.03 as of 11:13 a.m. in New York.

Enbridge Inc. stopped allowing high-sulfur crudes on its pipeline out of North Dakota in 2011, forcing North Dakota Sour producers to rely on more expensive transport such as trucks and trains, according to Auers.

High-sulfur crude in North Dakota is a small portion of the state’s production, with less than 15,000 barrels a day coming out of the ground.

************************************ 

Add Vodka To The Long List Of Wonderful North Dakota Products

From The Dickinson Press:

Three brothers and a cousin are distilling potato vodka in a still at their Park River family potato farm.

But the vodka being produced and sold at their Moon River Distillery is no moonshine.

Thompson Brothers Vodka is a licensed vodka produced from homegrown products and a vatful of family connections.

Lots of potatoes:

In this case, a potato mash is created by combining potatoes and water, heating the mixture into a mash to convert the starches into sugars. Then, liquid is extracted from the mash, which starts the fermentation process.

The Thompsons use wood- and coal-fired heat in their distillation process, which begins when the "dead yeast" is filtered out through a series of carbon and paper filters.

Then, the liquid moves to a proofing tank, where it is mixed with water to obtain the required 40 percent alcohol content, or 80 proof vodka, for bottling.

It takes 12 pounds of potatoes to make one 750-milliliter bottle of vodka. So, a 100-bottle batch takes 1,200 pounds, or 12 100-pound bags.

Mead next?

They're closer to making honey wine, more commonly called mead. Scott Thompson said he already is experimenting with recipes.

"North Dakota is the No. 1 producer of honey. We're going to try to do something unique, like a holiday release," he said. "Mead takes a while to make, to ferment. It has unique characteristics that lend (it) to being nice for limited releases, such as for holidays."

And this interesting little nugget: 

Scott has 30 years of experience, mostly working in the compressed gas industry.

He and his wife have lived in several parts of the country, including the Gulf Coast, Pacific Northwest and Silicon Valley, where he learned the home brewery trade.

Much, much more at the link. 

So Much For All That Hand-Wringing Over Honeybee Colony Collapse; North Dakota Clear Winner (Again) In Honey Production -- July 27, 2015

From Carpe Diem: US honeybee-colony numbers are now at a 20-year high and US honey producton is at a 10-year high with a 19% increase in production last year.

Source here.  

I have many posts on North Dakota honey production, but this post will probably become the main post to track updates.

July 27, 2015: honey update from USDA, March 20, 2015, data points:

• 2014: US honey production up almost 20% over 2013
• 2014: total colonies up 4 percent over 2013
• 2014: honey prices set a record high in 2014, up 1% from 2013

North Dakota led the nation in number of producing colonies: 480

• California: 330
• South Dakota: 265
• Florida: 220 
• Montana: 159

North Dakota trounces all other states in honey production: 33 million lbs

• Montana: 15 million lbs
• Florida: 13 million lbs
• California: 11 million lbs
• Minnesota: 8 million lbs
• Texas: 6 million lbs

This explains the "Montana" phenomenon: Colonies which produced honey in more than one State were counted in each State where the honey was produced. Therefore, at the United States level yield per colony may be understated, but total production would not be impacted.

Update On Honey Bee Colony Collapse -- A North Dakota Story -- May 3, 2015

Updates

July 27, 2015: From Carpe Diem: US honeybee-colony numbers are now at a 20-year high and US honey producton is at a 10-year high with a 19% increase in production last year. 

July 27, 2015: honey update from USDA, March 20, 2015, data points:

• 2014: US honey production up almost 20% over 2013
• 2014: total colonies up 4 percent over 2013
• 2014: honey prices set a record high in 2014, up 1% from 2013

North Dakota led the nation in number of producing colonies: 480

• California: 330
• South Dakota: 265
• Florida: 220 
• Montana: 159

North Dakota trounces all other states in honey production: 33 million lbs

• Montana: 15 million lbs
• Florida: 13 million lbs
• California: 11 million lbs
• Minnesota: 8 million lbs
• Texas: 6 million lbs

This explains the "Montana" phenomenon: Colonies which produced honey in more than one State were counted in each State where the honey was produced. Therefore, at the United States level yield per colony may be understated, but total production would not be impacted.

July 25, 2015: wind farms may be responsible for loss of bees. 

Since vast areas are within affective range of low frequency sound levels emitted by wind turbines, it becomes clear that there is a connection between low frequency sound produced by wind turbines and the disappearance of honeybees. The areas with the most disappearances of honeybees directly correspond with that of operating wind farms.

California is second, behind North Dakota for honeybee losses and first in wind farm operations, within range of areas where honeybee colonies are located. As of 2007, most North Dakota wind farms were concentrated within a small area in the southeastern portion of the state. Since then, wind farms have spread to many other sections of the state, and the resulting losses of honeybees will most likely increase as well.

Original Post

 

Unfortunately I have not been able to find the link on the internet of a great article in this month's (May's) issue of The National Geographic.

It's by Charles C. Mann, "The Quest for a Superbee."

On page 94 of that issue, there is a great graphic of "bees on the move." North Dakota leads the country -- by a wide margin -- in pollinated acres:

• North Dakota: 2.3 million acres
• California: 1.7 million acres
• Florida: 617,000 acres

Ranked by density, the distinction and the margin is even greater. North Dakota is "alone" in its own division, at the top of the list, at 33 acres of pollinated crops per square mile.

In the second division (6 to 11 acres per square mile) (note the drop from 33 acres / square mile in the top division):

• California (almonds)
• Florida (grapefruit)
• South Dakota (sunflowers)

In the third divisions, hardly worth mentioning, at 1 to 5 acres per square mile, include:

• Kansas (sunflowers)
• Oklahoma (canola)
• Michigan (apples)
• Washington state (apples)
• New York "ban fracking" State (apples)
• Maine (blueberries)
• Massachusetts (cranberries)
• Delaware (melons)
• New Jersey (melons)

Several states show a loss of bee colonies of more than 50%, including: Montana, Utah, New Mexico, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Vermont. 

The article starts with history of the current superstar, the Buckfast bee, a superbee. A monk, Brother Adam, was a 16-year-old novice at the Buckfast Abbey in southwest England, in 1915, just after perhaps the worst catastrophe of bee die-off in history. He devoted his life to developing the superbee, the Buckfast bee, which by the 1980s were sold across the world.

Brother Adam, between 1950 and 1980, had collected honey bee queens from around the world, to include: "the hardworking bees of Turkey, the hyper-diverse bees of Crete, the isolated bees of Sahara oases, the deep black bees of Morocco, the tiny orange bees of the Nile, the supposedly placed beeds of Mount Kilimanjaro. He took his exotic menagerie to a remote station in the moors, miles from other bees with their unwanted genes ... and created the Buckfast bee -- a superbee, as it was quickly dubbed. Tan-colored and robust, it was reluctant to sting, zealously productive, and resistant to what come to be called Isle of Wight disease (a virus)."

For his efforts, Brother Adam "was removed from his post. Buckfast's abbot, convinced that Brother Adam's growing fame conflicted with his vocation, removed him from his post. Brother Adam died, heartbroken, in 1996."

That Buckfast abbot sounds like he should join ISIS. He would fit right in.

It's a great article. NoDaks might want to buy this month's NatGeo just for this article.

By the way, even better news. The current great bee die-off was not blamed on global warming. Although researchers try to pin the current colony collapse with much human activity (such as habitat loss and chemicals), the fact remains, it is likely mostly due to the "varroa mite," Varroa destructor.

********************************

By the way, just the other day I posted a story on a new plant that farmers will begin planting in North Dakota, one that honeybees love. This story just keeps getting better and better.

 ******************************

Another story related to the honeybee story, from The Dickinson Press:

Giants Snacks--a family-owned company born from the idea that, when it comes to sunflower seeds, bigger is better--is now two decades old and still growing.

Advertisement

That growth is fueled by the company's willingness to try new things, like when it rolled out its kettle-roasted line of roasted, in-the-shell sunflower seeds a few years back.

When it became clear no one was going to market the larger seeds, Schuler said they decided to put them in a bag and call them Giants.

It took time, but the brand gained a following. By 2004, Giants was the official sunflower seed supplier to the Minnesota Twins, a triumph credited to Jason Schuler, Jay Schuler's son and vice president of sales at Giants.

Today, Giants also has an official partnership with the Colorado Rockies, and Giants seeds are consumed in the dugouts of many major league ballparks.

A Honey Of A Story -- Best Story Of The Day -- February 2, 2015

Our older granddaughter has a particular interest in honey. Since about age four she listened to stories about honey and honeybees and then started reading about honey on her own. While in Boston we found a little store near Harvard Square that sold honey from around the world. Expensive, but she loved it.

So, this story was of particular interest. Multiple sources are reporting, this is from The Grand Forks Herald:

Kloten Apiaries, which started making honey here about four decades ago, is still buzzing along and recently landed a sweet national award.

Elizabeth Stromme, whose family founded Kloten Apiaries 38 years ago, said they entered this year’s Good Food Awards contest in San Francisco on a whim, after Kloten Apiaries was invited to submit honey for judging.

“It was just something that came out of left field and I said, ‘OK, let’s send a couple jars,’ ” Stromme said.

Kloten Apiaries ended up being one of a dozen honey producers in the country to receive a Good Food Award this year, with the winners determined by an organization comprised of representatives from a cross-section of the food industry.

Much, much more at the link. 

For Investors Only -- June 23, 2014 -- US Existing Home Sales, Inventory Surge In May; North Dakota Farmers To Be Paid More For Planting Bee-Friendly Crops -- Obama; North Dakota Big Winner In Bee-Friendly Program

Mid-day trading, trading at new 52-week highs so far today (I think a lot of these were at their highs at the market open and have since pulled back): APA, APC, BHI, BK, BP, CFN, CHK, CLR, COP, CVX, EOG, ERF, HAL, HK, KOG, MPO, MRO, NFX, NOV, OXY, PSX, PXD, TPLM, TSO, WFT, WIN, WLL, WPX, XOM.

Early trading: oil down slightly, market down slightly. Shares in publicly traded oil and oil service companies generally up:

• HK: up 1%
• TPLM: up almost 2%
• AMZG: flat
• SD: flat, up slightly
• CHK: up 1.5%
• OAS: up 0.8%
• KOG: up over 1%
• WLL: up almost 1%
• CLR: up 1%
• CVX: up .6%
• COP: up over 1%
• XOM: up about half a percent
• BHI: down slightly
• SLB: flat

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here.

AXAS has been a big winner. Zack's is reporting:

AXAS was a big mover last session, as the company saw its shares rise nearly 7% on the day. The move came on solid volume too with far more shares changing hands than in a normal session. This breaks the recent trend of the company, as the stock is now trading above the volatile price range of $4.65 to $5.42 in the past one-month time frame.

Other than the headline, I did not read this story over at Seeking Alpha. It seems fairly obvious and high oil prices won't help only KOG but every oil company out there. However, beware of the hedging issue. Some smaller companies could actually get hurt by high oil prices if they didn't hedge correctly or hedged too conservatively.

*****************************

Honey

Could a colder climate (the earth has not been warming for 18 years) PLUS putting all that acreage into corn-for-ethanol be causing the demise of the US honey bee industry? 

After years of taking bee-friendly crops out of production in the midwest, to plant corn for ethanol, the US government -- through an Obama initiative -- will now pay farmers to plant bee-friendly crops in land, in a last-ditch effort to stem the impending demise of the honeybee.

North Dakota farmers:

• some of the best cropland to begin with
• plenty of moisture past few years -- due to global cooling, perhaps?
• encouraged to plant more corn for ethanol -- better prices than wheat
• income from wind farms
• surface rights income from oil companies
• mineral rights in the Bakken
• and now, getting paid for planting bee-friendly crops through a new Obama farm program -- what's not to like?

The Bismarck Tribune is reporting:

Farmers and landowners who plant forage for North Dakota’s bee population are now eligible for federal funding.

The program is designed to help preserve what is left of the declining honeybee population in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has allocated $8 million as part of the Conservation Reserve Program for producers in five states that serve as homes to bees during the summer — Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

More than half of the commercially managed honey bees are in those five states.
North Dakota is the nation’s No. 1 honey producer with half a million colonies.

I remember seeing an article on this issue a couple days ago; while Iraq was imploding, Mr Obama was making a bee-friendly speech for North Dakota. One can only assume it was brought to his attention when he visited North Dakota ten days ago.

******************************

Honeybee Paradox

This is the problem with activist environmentalists. By being splintered and trying to save every species (generally only if the species is located where the Koch Brothers want to lay a pipeline), "we" lose sight of the really important species that we don't want to lose. For example, call me crazy, but I wonder if we lost the "snail darter," would anyone really notice. On the other hand, if we lose the honeybee, ....

And that's the problem; money spent litigating the snail darter's future would have been better spent studying the impending demise of the honey bee.

Likewise, environmental activists were jubilant replacing bee-friendly crops in North Dakota with corn for ethanol.

******************************

Going It Alone

As regular readers know, Canada was the first country to renounce the Kyoto Protocol, "taking back their signature," after being one of the original signers of the protocol.  Now Australia announces yet another country turning its back on this scam:

Prime Minister Tony Abbott reintroduced legislation to the Australian Parliament on Monday that would repeal a carbon tax that the nation's worst greenhouse gas polluters have to pay.

The opposition center-left Labor Party and minor Greens party used their Senate majority in March to block the bills that would remove the 24.15 Australian dollar ($22.79) tax per metric ton of carbon dioxide that was introduced by a Labor government in July 2012. The bills were defeated 33 votes to 29.

But with new senators to take their seats on July 7 for the first time since Abbott's conservative coalition government took power in an election in September, the bills are expected to be passed by a narrow margin. Coal mining magnate and carbon tax critic Clive Palmer leads four new senators who have promised their allegiance to his influential Palmer United Party.

******************************

But Things Might Be Changing In The United States

The AP is reporting:

The Supreme Court on Monday placed limits on the sole Obama administration program already in place to deal with power plant and factory emissions of gases blamed for global warming.

The justices said that the Environmental Protection Agency lacks authority in some cases to force companies to evaluate ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This rule applies when a company needs a permit to expand facilities or build new ones that would increase overall pollution. Carbon dioxide is the chief gas linked to global warming.

Carbon dioxide makes up about 3 tenths of a percent 350ppm = 0.035% (more like three one hundredths) of the atmosphere or something like that. Water vapor is the major greenhouse gas. 

Something You Won't See In The Mainstream Media: Cool Temperatures Affecting Honeybees; Now It's Personal

I cannot make this stuff up.

Now it's honey.

The Rapid City Journal is reporting:

A month-long string of cooler temperatures in the Dakotas this summer has honey producers anticipating a drop in the states' honey crops.

North Dakota and South Dakota are the nation's top two honey producing states, with North Dakota churning out 34 million pounds in 2012 and South Dakota producing 17 million pounds.

Experts say those numbers will likely be down for 2013.

North Dakota is #1. I did not know South Dakota was #2, but it must be. I thought California was #2, but apparently property taxes on beehives got too expensive, and the bees downsized their hives. Joking. 

So, now it's too cool and honey production will be affected.

And so it goes.