Certain it is, that I have little acquaintance with Amm, other than what I have read. But this is repeated throughout the US literature so I have a hard time believing that all these people were mistaken in their descriptions of the Amm that was here in the 1800s

> Blacks are by far the most troublesome of all races about flying from their hive entrances to sting in an unprovoked manner. Next to these are the crosses containing the blood of the blacks. Italians have much less of this disposition, and Carniolans and Cyprians rarely, the latter almost never, fly from their hive entrances to attack unless their hives have been disturbed.

FRANK BENTON. 1896. THE HONEY BEE: A MANUAL OF INSTRUCTION IN APICULTURE. U.S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY. WASHINGTON : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.

more from the book:

The apiarian industry in the United States is practically a development of the last forty years, although isolated individuals were engaged in this work long prior to that time. The importance of the industry at the present day is not generally realized, and the following figures will probably be surprising to many well-informed individuals:

Apiarian societies in the United States 110
Apiarian journals 8
Steam factories for the manufacture of beehives and apiarian implements. 15
Honey produced in the United States in 1869 (according to United States Census Report) pounds.. 14,702,815
Honey produced in the United States in 1889 (according to United States Census Report) pounds.. 63,894,186
Persons engaged in the culture of bees (estimated) 300,000
Honey and wax produced, at wholesale rates (Eleventh Census) $7,000,000
Mr. Benton's estimate of the present annual value of apiarian products. $20,000,000

It is estimated by Mr. Benton that the present existing flora of the United States could undoubtedly support, with the same average profit, ten times the number of colonies of bees it now supports. 

(note: at an average of 10 hives per person, this would work out to 3 million hives in 1889, producing a 21 pound average.)

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