SOUTHERN BEE CULTURE 129 



highest award on honey and beeswax; also a diploma of honor at Portland, 

 Ore., and have eleven other diplomas for first premiums at parish and State 

 fairs, showing you that our honey is good when handled right. 



Wjvi. J. Dawson, 



BEE-KEEPING IN LINCOLN CO., TENN. 



HARMS, TENN. 



As this is not considered a very good bee and honey section it may pay 

 all who are thinking of coming from other sections of the South or from 

 the North to select carefully a location with reference to what they wish 

 to follow in connection with bee-keeping. We have a great variety of soils, 

 from the very best alluvial in the river-bottom lands, to the poorest high- 

 lands or barrens. Between these two extremes we have beautiful hills and 

 valleys that will produce fruits and grain of nearly all kinds produced in 

 this latitude. These hills and valleys have been denuded of their dense cover- 

 ing of primeval forest growth to a very great extent. 



One who 'comes here to start in bee-keeping should be prepared to follow 

 some other vocation in connection with it, although there is one man in this 

 county who keeps bees alone as a business, and his average is about 12,000 

 lbs. of honey per annum. This man is Jim Moyers, of Fayetteville, and he 

 is a very prosperous citizen. But there are quite a number of others who 

 keep bees in connection with other pursuits, such as farming and poultry- 

 raising, and fanciers, etc. 



The reason I refer to the loss of our primeval forest growth is because, 

 back in my younger days (I am now 38 years old) here in this county there 

 were numberless quantities of gigantic poplar and basswood trees to bloom, 

 which give us a very heavy honey-flow. Now there is scarcely any poplar 

 except small growth, and the basswood is also going; but we have other 

 sources of honey to come in their stead, and in time we may come up to our 

 old-time place as a bee-keeping land. 



Our new sources of honey are the white aster and alsike clover. The 

 aster makes one of our finest varieties of table honey. It came to th^s 

 country in hay from the Northern States ; and the first appearance of it 

 was during the Civil War. It has fast spread all over this country; and, 

 aside from its great value as a honey-plant, it makes a good pasture for 

 cattle. If good seasons prevail just about a fortnight before the aster comes 

 in bloom, and then if the nights are cool when the plant blooms well, you 

 may get busy, for the bees will fill their hives in a week. I took 1080 lbs. 

 of honey from 29 colonies from the aster flow of 1907, and did not extract 

 any from the brood, the brood-nests, or bottom stories of my hivtfs, which 

 are eight and ten frame Langstroth. 



White clover is next to aster as a honey-plant ; and about every three 

 years it gives a good crop; 1906 was its good season, and I took off about 



