It would have been nice if the lumbermen didn't kill virtually every old
growth basswood forest east of the Mississippi. I've seen old growth
basswoods in Pennsylvania. The trunks can be over 4 feet in diameter, some
with multiple trunks. You can imagine how much honey a single tree of that
size can produce. Now imagine a whole forest of trees like that blooming
at the same time.
The basswood honey flow is definitely short, usually it happens in a single
week, all of a sudden they'll start drawing comb around July 1st, then as
my excitement rises, the flow ends abruptly. The strongest colonies can
cap and fill supers on a good "mast year" in a matter of 7 days
(reminiscent of a good Black Locust flow).
I can only imagine what it used to be like in the 1800s. They also used to
have American Chestnuts blooming back then too. I read conflicting reports
on whether Chestnut produced abundant honey or not.
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