BEEKEEPING IN THE 

 SOUTH 



CHAPTER I 

 Shall I Go South? 



THIS question has been repeatedly asked by dozens of bee- 

 keepers whenever the author has appeared at various 

 beekeepers' conventions in the North, and has prompted, 

 in a measure, the writing of this volume. Many inquiries sent 

 to the United States Bee Culture Laboratory at Washington, 

 D. C, and referred to the author, during his term of government 

 bee culture extension work in the South, showed a country wide 

 interest in southern beekeeping. Probably many of the writers 

 were disappointed at the lack of definite information and the 

 conservative prospects pictured in the answers to these inquiries. 

 However, in this volume, after seventeen months spent in in- 

 vestigating the honey producing resources of the South, the 

 author hopes to give more accurate information about bee- 

 keeping prospects of the South, than he was able to do before. 



There are not so many bee locations which are readily accessi- 

 ble and untenanted in the South as the average beekeeper resid- 

 ing elsewhere in the United States might expect. Many of the 

 ideal bee locations are now taken, except in the localities rather 

 remote from modern transportation. In these remote localities 

 there remain many good bee locations. However, one of the 

 facts that should be taken into consideration by every man who 

 has at any time considered going south for beekeeping, is that 

 there are probably more bees in the fifteen southern states, 

 than in all the balance of the United States. 



Northern Colonies Outnumbered. 



The figures compiled from the census of 1910, which arc 



9 



