At long last, the secret behind Sourwood will be revealed.

It is:


       Clear Cuts and Brush Fires!!


You may wonder why the government continues to allow so
much logging in the national forests.

      Because that's where the trees are!!!

You may ask why the brush fires are always so far away from the
paved roads, and quite a hike even from the gravel roads.

      Because that's where the overgrown underbrush is!!!

To find good sourwood, you map both where logging permits are
issued, and brush fires.  Then you wait a year, maybe two.

Then you make a site visit, to see how much sourwood is growing.
Maybe you help it along a little, using your handy chainsaw
and brush cutters to eliminate some competing growth.  In the
national forests, too much of this would be illegal without
a logging permit, but "limited clearing of underbrush" is
allowed to permit vehicle and foot passage along existing roads
and trails, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Then you wait a few more years, during which time you figure
out just how much ad-hoc road improvement you must do to bring
hives in over what is now an abandoned "fire trail" or "logging
road", fit only for front loaders and other caterpillar-tracked
vehicles.  If the site is in a national forest, you must do such
ad-hoc road improvement yourself at your own expense.

After 4 to 5 years, you have your very own super-secret sourwood site!

No matter how secret, you will be sharing it with the bears, so
the challenge for the winter of the 4th year is to create a
trailer or other enclosure that is bear proof, yet portable.

After your main flow, you harvest, and take your best hives
up into the hills or out into the woods along with every super
of (still "wet", and therefore "baited") drawn comb you can stack
on them.

Then you leave the hives there, and hope that they gather a sourwood
crop and are not turned into toothpicks by a bear.  It helps to
let one's forest ranger and/or national park rangers know where
your "secret site" is, so they can inform you when bears are sighted
near your site.  The will also tend to check on your site to see that
it remains undisturbed by bored teenagers.

After a few years, the other trees (mostly pine) start to overshadow
the sourwood, so you must be constantly looping through the process
above to find a new site.

Now there should no longer be any wonder why sourwood honey fetches
such a high price.  :)

                jim (It's an ill wind that blows no minds)

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