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) :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::