# sourwood info



## ifixoldhouses (Feb 27, 2019)

brooklynhoney said:


> Hi, I just discovered sourwood honey and really enjoy it. I would love to learn more about it but am having a hard time finding out information about it online. One such question i have is regarding its color. I have read numerous places that a clearer sourwood honey is a sign of better quality. Is this true?
> 
> Thank you in advance


I got some last year and it's almost pinkish looking,The trees pretty much only produce nectar in the NC mountains at 1100' it's hard to come by, most of the people of NC buy it up.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Brian, not just NC. Dan at Brushwood Nursery in Athens, GA does sourwood too. He gave me a jar a few years ago in a honey swap. Elevation is the key, gotta be in what we call mountains. Here where I am at about 100' msl, well, I'm screwed.


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## Struttinbuck (Mar 8, 2020)

ifixoldhouses said:


> I got some last year and it's almost pinkish looking,The trees pretty much only produce nectar in the NC mountains at 1100' it's hard to come by, most of the people of NC buy it up.


Theres patches of it around me , but not like any hollers full. In my area, they dont produce nectar on a regular basis. Hard to come by.


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## Steve in PA (Jan 26, 2015)

JWPalmer said:


> Brian, not just NC. Dan at Brushwood Nursery in Athens, GA does sourwood too. He gave me a jar a few years ago in a honey swap. Elevation is the key, gotta be in what we call mountains. Here where I am at about 100' msl, well, I'm screwed.


Do you mean Dan from Booger Hill Bee Company, aka Beemandan on here? He's in Athens and shared sourwood with me as well. Could there be 2 Dans in Athens? LOL.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Two Dans. Here is the thread where they introduced themselves to each other.









winter frame storage


Every year around this time I make my final hive inspections before cold weather. I usually find a handful of hives that are unlikely to survive, so I shake out the bees and then I try to find a home for the frames. Since most of my hives are already configured for winter, I’m always left with a...




www.beesource.com


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## brooklynhoney (Feb 10, 2021)

Thanks for all these great responses! Does anyone just how much the varying colors align with different flavors or quality? Does anyone know a good online source to find out more about sourwood? thanks again


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## ifixoldhouses (Feb 27, 2019)

JWPalmer said:


> Brian, not just NC. Dan at Brushwood Nursery in Athens, GA does sourwood too. He gave me a jar a few years ago in a honey swap. Elevation is the key, gotta be in what we call mountains. Here where I am at about 100' msl, well, I'm screwed.


yeah, but he goes to NC to get it, just like Bob BInnie


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## ncbeez (Aug 25, 2015)

I seperate mine by color, when it was collected and taste. Sometimes the frame of sourwood has a little clover or sumac in it. If only a few, then I will cut them out of the comb before spinning out. Sumac is darker than sourwood. Sometimes I get a frame about half sourwood and call it a sourwood mix. Sourwood is light in color but will darken a little with age. However it does not take very much other honey in the mix to darken it some. You will get used to the distinct flavor if you eat it often enough. 
Now I may get some disagreeable comments but I would not buy sourwood if it has crystallized. I have never had sourwood that crystallized. The longest I could ever stand to keep it though was 4 yrs without eating it and a local beekeeping friend dated and kept his non crystalized 7 yrs before he couldn't wait any longer. Brian is right the demand is high for sourwood. I have regular customers who take all I have to sell. It is already spoken for before harvest and unfortunately there is so much construction going on in my area that we are losing many of the trees.


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## ncbeez (Aug 25, 2015)

I am at 2000 ft elevation in Asheville NC area. Not sure of the best elevation but I get some.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

There are at least two beekeeping Dans near Athens. The other Dan takes a load of hives to the north GA mountains. I keep a year round beeyard near Franklin, NC.
Here at home near Athens, GA we have sourwood trees. One of the biggest that I’ve ever seen is less than a half mile from my house. All the same, here our bees don’t produce a surplus of sourwood honey. The elevation is 700 feet. Fifty miles north of me many beekeepers make a surplus. I don’t know at what exact elevation they start to produce but likely around 1500ft.
The old timers claim that sourwood never crystallizes. I have a 6 year old jar that still hasn’t. My wildflower usually goes a year without.
The sourwood that I make is consistently much lighter in color than my wildflower. I’ve been told that it can be a pretty wide range.
There are a number of unscrupulous beekeepers that sell ‘sourwood’ honey that isn’t. It is sometimes referred to as the ‘tourist’ variety. Very sad.
Bob Binnie of Blue Ridge Honey Company has some excellent videos and at least one where he talks about sourwood.


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## Boondocks (Sep 16, 2020)

Some info about the sourwood tree:

*Botanical Information*

*Native habitat:* Coast of Virginia to North Carolina and in southwestern Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, Indiana, western Kentucky, Tennessee, the Appalachians to western Florida and the coasts of Mississippi and Louisiana.
*Growth habit:* A pyramidal growth habit with a rounded top and drooping branches.
*Tree size:* Reaches a height of 25 to 30 feet with a spread of 20 feet. Has a slow growth rate.
*Flower and fruit:* Small, quarter-inch flowers look like upside-down urns. They open in June and are fragrant, white, and hang from 4- to 10-inch panicles. The flowers persist as clusters of small brown fruit. Fruit is a dehiscent, five-valved capsule about one-third of an inch long.
*Leaf:* Alternate, simple leaves are 3 to 8 inches long and 1½ to 3½ inches wide. Leaves are dark green, slick and glossy, helping prevent injury from pollution.
*Hardiness:* Winter hardy to USDA Zone 5.






Sourwood | Department of Horticulture







www.uky.edu





You can plant sourwood trees in your backyard,. It needs the proper soil pH and can not endure without good irrigation during dry spells. 
Several nurseries sell seedlings and small trees with the root ball. 
We have some in the Georgia piedmont north of Athens.


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## joebeewhisperer (May 13, 2020)

ncbeez said:


> I am at 2000 ft elevation in Asheville NC area. Not sure of the best elevation but I get some.


We are also at 2000 ft about an hour north or Chattanooga TN. There has been a fair amount of logging near me over the past 5-15 years. This caused a lot of small trees and shrubs to receive sunlight and bloom for the first time in years, including a lot of sourwood. There are at least hundreds of these trees within range of my yard. 

I haven't noticed a color variant except what has been mentioned. Dad would take pains to gather sourwood honey and give it to family and friends. As someone here said, I think it would slightly darken over time but it was pretty light. 

This is another case of being blessed with something you take for granted. I can go to the local Piggy Wiggly and buy all the quarts of sourwood honey I want (around $12-15). Every store in the neighborhood stocks it. I think it comes from some folks on the mountain(s) just north of Chattanooga/Graysville/Dayton in the same area where you find Wooden's and other apple house type businesses.


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## HaplozygousNut (Dec 30, 2015)

Sourwoods are a common tree in our woods here in Wake Forest, NC. We have gotten nectar through June before when Sourwoods were blooming along the roadsides. The honey was water white with a purplish hue to it. It smelled something like candy, not sure exactly what kind of candy... We might get sourwood honey some seasons here at lower elevation. These past couple years we haven't got any nectar even during the sourwood bloom, the nectar flow has been ending sometime during May these past couple years.


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## GovtMule66 (Jun 7, 2019)

*Native Range*

Sourwood is found from southwest Pennsylvania to southern Ohio, and southern Indiana, south to southeastern Louisiana and the coastal region of Mississippi, Alabama, and northwest Florida; west to western Kentucky and Tennessee, and to the Delta in Mississippi; and east to the Atlantic coast from southern Virginia to central North Carolina, and to the edge of the Coastal Plain in South Carolina and Georgia. The main range lies between latitude 30° and 40° N. and longitude 75° and 92° W. Sourwood reaches its largest size on the western slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.










When the sourwood trees are in bloom I can see a lot of them from my front porch in southern WV. Last years honeyflow was pretty sad in my area up until the sourwood trees bloomed in late July. I didn't think our honeybees were going to be able to bring in enough honey to carry them through the winter but they ended up well exceeding that mark plus more.


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## brooklynhoney (Feb 10, 2021)

Thank you everyone for all this great information, i really appreciate it! 

Could someone recommend a few of the best beekeepers to contact who are known for their sourwood honey. I would love to get a little collection going of the finest sourwood out there and try them all. Thank you so much


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## Boondocks (Sep 16, 2020)

brooklynhoney said:


> Thank you everyone for all this great information, i really appreciate it!
> 
> Could someone recommend a few of the best beekeepers to contact who are known for their sourwood honey. I would love to get a little collection going of the finest sourwood out there and try them all. Thank you so much


Bob Binnie is a good guy. He has a lot of experience with sourwood.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

MtnHoney has taken their sourwood honey to Apimondia on a number of occasions and won gold medals for it.
I understand that Carl Webb passed away in 2019 so I am not sure who is running the beekeeping enterprise today.

Sourwood honey - pure, raw and natural from the Georgia Mountains (mtnhoney.com)


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