12 BEEKEEPING IN THE SOUTH 



Another feature which must be taken into consideration is 

 that in some portions of the South, especially in the lowlands, 

 much of the honey produced year in and year out, would average 

 darker in color than in the clover regions of the North. Still 

 another feature is that in many parts, particularly Alabama, 

 Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and east Texas, there are 

 vast beekeeping regions where bitterweed honey must be reck- 

 oned with. This is covered more fully in the chapter on "Sources 

 of Honey in the South." This honey is bitter, unpalatable and 

 unsalable. However, bees do not work bitterweed when other 

 equal nectar sources are available and the season is usually 

 short when bitterweed honey is stored. This enables the care- 

 ful beekeeper to separate the flows. A feasible plan which is now 

 being used by some beekeepers of the bitterweed region, is to 

 extract and store away the entire crop of bitterweed honey. At 

 the end of the season the frames of the brood chamber which 

 may contain a fair grade of honey may be extracted, and the 

 bitterweed honey fed back to the bees for winter stores. The use 

 of bitterweed honey for winter stores has never proved un- 

 satisfactory, to the knowledge of the author. 



We have often wondered why some enterprising patent medi- 

 cine man did not buy up quantities of this bitterweed honey, 

 which tastes like liquid quinine, and put it on the market as a 

 cold "cure." It would certainly have a "punch" with it. 



Honey, Bees or Queens? 



A problem which must be considered by any 'foreign" bee- 

 keeper, is whether or not he wishes to go south for the production 

 of honey, bees or queens? Good honey producing regions are 

 found in nearly all portions of the southern states. Queens can 

 usually be raised successfully for early shipment to the North 

 in April and May without fail, in all the territory below a line 

 which might be drawn through Charleston, South Carolina, 

 Birmingham, Alabama, and Austin, Texas. North of this 

 line queen breeding is carried on just as successfully, but breed- 

 ers in this northern belt often experience sudden changes of 



