>> I cannot locate the reference by James Fenimore Cooper 
>> pertaining to bees 'preceding the settlers' or similar 
>> accounts thereof associated with bees by J. F. Cooper.  

> Here you are.  Amazingly, The Prairie is available online 


But it is not a factual account at all.  
Cooper wrote fiction!

"The Prairie" was one of Cooper's series of "Leatherstocking Tales" 
("The Deerslayer", "The Last of the Mohicans", "The Pathfinder", 
"The Pioneer", "The Prairie").  All were fiction.

The stories are the adventures of Natty Bumppo, who in the 
story "The Prairie" is semi-retired, living on the frontier 
and spinning tall tales.

So, it is fiction about someone clearly telling "tall tales", 
which is TWO layers of fiction.  Fiction about fiction.

As I recall, one big clue that one should not mistake this 
story as a source for any accurate information about biology 
is the scene where Dr. Bat mistakes his own donkey for a new 
species of animal.  :)

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