CHAPTER X 

 Mountain Beekeeping. 



AC ROSS the northern tier of states usually classed as part of 

 Dixieland, ranges of mountains extend, increasing the alti- 

 tude of most of the country and transforming much of the 

 season and many of the types of honey plants. It is this region 

 with which we will deal in this chapter, principally to differenti- 

 ate the seasons and honey plants, rather than to show a different 

 type of bee culture or bee appliances. These latter are much 

 the same as in other parts of the South. 



East of the Mississippi River, some of this mountain bee terri- 

 tory is included by flora, in what is commonly known as the 

 "white clover region." Indeed, it is the white clover region, for 

 no beekeeper ever tasted finer white clover honey than that 

 produced by such men as Porter C. Ward, in the rolling hills of 

 Kentucky. This plant is also an important source of nectar in 

 some parts of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Tennessee. 

 West of the Mississippi River in this same hilly region, through 

 the Ozarks of Arkansas and their continuation into eastern 

 Oklahoma, white clover is seldom mentioned as a source of honey 

 and nectar comes from other sources too numerous to name. 



With the arrival of the beekeeper in the mountains of Ten- 

 nessee and Kentucky, particularly along the lines of the Louisville 

 & Nashville and Queen & Crescent Railroads, the type of soil 

 found throughout the alluvial region is absent. Nearing the 

 famous bluegrass regions, one finds a soil not unlike that of 

 Illinois and Indiana in some places, -but the presence of the 

 mountains brings about an entire change of flora from that of 

 the alluvial region. 



Trees Predominate. 



As in the tropics, many of the most important sources of honey 

 are again trees. Prominent among them rank the tulip poplar, 

 basswood and sourwood, as well as locust, sumac, and lesser 



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