Adrian Wenner wrote: > At 09:11 PM 99/02/19 -0800, Steven wrote: > >I am looking for information about the origin of bees in the americas, > > In May of 1993, Robbin Thorp and I published an article in BEE CULTURE > ("The honey bees of Santa Cruz Island." 121 (5):272-275). We gave some > background about honey bee introductions in that article. > > Apparently, the first United States honey bees arrived in the Virginia > Colony in 1622 (a bit of research confirmed by Eva Crane in her volume, > ARCHEOLOGY OF BEEKEEPING). By 1654 they had reached New England. Lee > Watkins documented the arrival of bees in California, the first in 1853. > Walter Sheppard published quite a complete account We (actually, Steve Buchmann) came up with about 1535 for the hbees landing in Monterrey, Mexico. I wish someone fluent in Spanish would undertake a search of the archives in Spain and Catholic church records in the Americas to sort this out. The Catholics have always been heavily into beeswax for candles, and records of many of the missions in Mexico, Arizona, N.Mexico, and California still exist, as well as shipping manifests in Spain. All that is needed is someone who speaks the language, and has an eye for beekeeping terms. - John, Tucson ----------------------------------------------------------- John F. Edwards Biological Lab. Technician "Feral Bee Tracker and AHB Identifier" Carl Hayden Bee Research Center 2000 E. Allen Road Tucson, Arizona 85719 Office: 520-670-6380, ext.110 Fax: 520-670-6493 Geog. location: 32.27495 N 110.9402 W Lab webpages: http://198.22.133.109/ http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/home/edwards/index.html http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/home/edwards/jephotos.htm