I am about to move a few hives to a place I recently purchased in the North Carolina mountains.  My goal is to produce sourwood honey (when possible) for friends and neighbors.  The elevation is about 4,000 feet and cold so I am concerned about adequate winter stores.  I run my hives in the piedmont of N.C. in a hive body and a six and five eights super, to facilate moving, but also because I find that with our short honey flows a lot ends up in the upper deep super when running two deeps.  I am also going to place these hives on a relatively flat barn roof to avoid bears so weight is an issue.  Does anyone have advice on hive configuration and management for sourwood?  

For those of you not familiar with sourwood it is an ericaceous tree that blooms in mid summer, sometimes sold as lily of the valley tree because the flowers look like lily of the valley.  It produces a light, highly sought-after honey.  In sandy coastal plain soils it will produce a bit of blue honey (other ericaceous plants will do the same).  There always seems to be a lot of suspect sourwood honey for sale in the southeast mountains.  Sourwood is sort of like our politicians:  many are called, but few are chosen.

Bill Lord
Louisburg, NC

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