>Adrian Wenner had a very nice article published in the May 1993 issue of
>Gleanings. He fixes the date of the first bee importation into California
>at 1853. One colony reached San Jose, CA from Panama, but no one seems to
>know how it got to Panama (were there Euro. honey bees there by then?).

Dr. Wenner writes:

   One can find a quite complete account of that importation on pages
190-191 in the May 1968 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, written by my good friend at
the time (Lee H. Watkins, now deceased).  In his article, Watkins attempted
to make sense of the conflicting accounts of the time.

   In brief, 12 colonies purchased by C.A. Shelton, left New York by ship.
Native boats and mules aided in their transport across the Panama Isthmus.
After travel in rough seas to San Francisco and then to San Jose, only one
hive remained alive.  In later years, other importers of bees had a better
success rate on the same route.  (Unfortunately, Shelton got scalded to
death on board ship before reaching the final destination.)

Peter also summarized:

>Harbison brought 67 colonies in 1857 and by 1860 there was at least a
>thousand colonies in San Jose. These bees were "German" black bees which
>were first brought to Virginia, USA in 1622. Dr. Wenner states that the
>feral honey bees on Santa Cruz Island probably descended from this same
>stock, having been taken there around 1873. (See ABJ, Jan. 1988)

>Interestingly, he notes that after 130 years in isolation they appeared
>very similar to the dark Euro. races *except for color*. Dr. Wenner, can
>you comment on the color of the bees?

   The Santa Cruz Island bees have a very light color (a "yellow" tint,
according to Dr. Rob Page, who spent several days with us on the island).
The exact ancestry of the bees remains somewhat of a mystery.  DNA
analysis, allozyme analysis, and wing morphometrics did not yield results
consistent with one another.

   To add to the mystery of "Iberian" bees in the Mission country, the
chalkbrood found in Santa Cruz Island bee colonies is closer to that found
in Iberian bee colonies than in colonies on the nearby mainland (Santa
Barbara).  One can find that account in:

1997  Gilliam, M., B.J. Lorenz, A.M. Wenner, and R.W. Thorp.  Occurrence
and distribution of Ascosphaera apis in North America: chalkbrood in feral
honey bee colonies that had been in isolation on Santa Cruz Island,
California for over 110 years.  Apidologie.  28:329-338.

   Peter, in that last connection (Iberian chalkbrood), also astutely noted:

>Finally, knowing that the Spanish arrived in Mexico with a voracious
>appetite for beeswax, and that they established missions clear up to
>California, one would *assume* that they brought bees into northern Mexico
>along with grape vines, etc. But did they? If they had, why would Harbison
>and the rest need to import bees?

   C.A. Shelton was a botanist who had travelled extensively about
California before going back East to gather plants and bees.  He surely
would have known if bees had existed in California before he purchased his
hives in New York (at great expense) and went to all the trouble to get
those colonies to California.