Bill Truesdell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
  <snip>, it would be interesting if bees were found in Ohio before settlers came in. One interesting fact is the honeybee was called the "white man's fly. So did they precede the settlers or were they concurrent?
   
  According to a local historian (NE Ohio), they preceded but not by much.  The presence of honeybees in your area was a reliable indicator that the settlers were coming.  Logically, they would have to be coming soon enough that the established residents could make the connection between honeybees and the coming of the settlers so you're probably talking a few years difference.
   
  Just to be a contrarian, though, I could offer a hypothesis that the presence of honeybees in your area only meant that you already had one settler in the area who you did not yet know about but who brought the bees with him.  The one settler then attracted others until there are enough new people that you notice the incursion.  To you, it seems like the bees came first even though they were concurrent with the first settler.  I don't know of a way to prove or disprove the hypothesis.


Mike Rossander
       
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