In the following excerpt the author makes the interesting point that beeswax was being shipped *from Spain* to the colonies, until beekeeping became established in the New World.

>Beehives coming from Spain (containing the so-called castilian bees) and Portugal arrived in South America the beginning of the 19th century (the first hives probably arrived in Brazil between 1800 and 1839); they contained the breed A. mellifera iberica.
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>Although no exact data exist about the transportation of the beehives from the Iberian peninsula to America, we can make an indirect approximation by the study of the wax trade.
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>According to Law 3. title 9, book of the Recopilaciones, the Spanish Crown was obliged to provide the wine, oil and wax used during mass in the churches. Because the wax obtained from the indigenous bees of Yucatan and Cuba was scarce and of poor quality, it had to be imported from Spain.
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>Wax was exported from Spain in two forms, worked and unworked (in containers known as Marquetas). Spanish exportations started gaining importance from the mid 17th century until the beginning of the 18th century American commercial apiculture started to become important at this time).
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>The first beehives arrived in Brazil and were distributed to Chile and Peru from there. Bees are presumed to have arrived in Argentina from Chile, specifically Mendoza province, and in time came to be known as criol to distinguish them from the italian bees, which were brought over later.
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>Mellifera and iberica breeds were probably introduced into Central America at the same time, depending on where the colonizers came from.
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>Apiculture began in the second half of the 18th century in Cuba. Bishop Morell of Santa Cruz probably was the first to introduce it when in 1762, coming back from exile in Florida, he brought several beehives with him of the type then known as castillian bees.
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>from:
>BEES, APICULTURE AND THE NEW WORLD
>ABEJAS, APICULTURA Y EL NUEVO MUNDO
>Padilla, F., F. Puerta, J.M. Flores and M. Bustos.