Sorry, I can't help you on this.  Am sending it out to another
list on bees to see if there is any help there.
 
Tom Sanford
 
At 04:28 PM 7/1/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Hello!
>
>I'm a reference librarian at a university in Texas.  I have had a
>question from a patron, couldn't answer with standard ref. sources,
>threw it out to the incredible WWW listserv "Stumpers" which is a
>collaboration of librarians across the world and they have suggested
>that this mysterious word is bee-related.
>
>I am trying to find the meaning of the word:
>
>apisling
>
>A patron's family is described in a 1870 Georgia (USA) census as
>'apislings on a farm'.
>
>I've used the Oxford English Dictionary plus several other general
>English language dictionaries with no luck.  Is this word in fact
>in the vocabulary of beekeepers?
>
>thanks so much for any hints!
>
>Pam Spooner (whose flower garden is nicely full of bees!)
>Wildenthal Memorial Library
>Sul Ross State University, Alpine
>