Sourwood Honey
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sourwood honey is a delicious and popular honey that is produced in the Eastern United States.
It has a sweet, spicy, anise aroma and flavor with a pleasant, lingering aftertaste. Generally light in color,
sourwood honey is prized by honey lovers and has even been known to convert non-honey eaters into honey lovers.
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Sourwood honey is produced from the sourwood tree (a.k.a. the lilly-of-the-valley tree). The Sourwood tree is a
late blooming tree (one of the latest) that has beautiful white bell-shaped perfect flowers that appear from late June
to August. The flowers are insect pollinated and are the source of the famous honey produced from this tree.
The sourwood tree is also used at times as an ornimental tree and has little or no value as a timber source. |
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The production of sourwood honey is very challenging due to the short bloom of the tree. Bee keepers work hard to
find a high concentration of trees to ensure a pure production of honey. To produce adequate nectar, sourwood trees
require a large amount of sunlight. Since sourwood trees are slow growing and often shorter than surrounding native
trees, adequate sunlight is often difficult to come by. Frequent rains or low temperatures during the harvest of
Sourwood honey can also have a significant impact to the overall production levels. |
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Sourwood honey is not available all year. The demand is usually much higher than the supply and most producers sell out quickly each year.
The overall supply each year is also going to vary greatly due to production conditions. The best months to get sourwood honey are in August and September. |
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North Carolina is a large producer of Sourwood honey. The mountains in Western North Carolina have a high concentration
of Sourwood trees that produce a very high quality Sourwood honey product. |
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The sourwood honey productions during 2006 was outstanding. |
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You can find additional info about the sourwood tree along with more images at Sourwood.org |
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