and Varieties of the Honey-Bce. 337 



Bee, which has been much cultivated since the year 1772*. The 

 Bee was introduced from Florida. 8. According to Ramon de la 

 Sagra (Historia de la isla de Cuba, 1831, p. 80) the introduction 

 of the Honey-Bee into Cuba took place from Florida in 1764; 

 and in that author's ^Natural History of Cuba^ (ii. 7. p. 327) 

 Apis mellifica is mentioned as introduced into Cuba. 9. Ulloa, as 

 quoted by Olivier (Enc. meth. Insectes, i. p. 49), gives the date 

 1 764 for the introduction of the Honey-Bee into Cuba, and de- 

 scribes the extraordinary rapidity wdth which the insects multi- 

 plied and spread themselves over the country. 10. Moreau de 

 Saint-Mery (Desc. de la partie Fran9aise de Vile Saint-Domingue, 

 tome ii. p. 112, 1798) gives the date 1781 for the introduction 

 of the Honey-Bee into St. Domingo ; he says it was brought 

 from Martinique by the Comte de la Croix. 



Fi'om these various reports we gather that, in the most dif- 

 ferent parts of North America, where the Honey-Bee now exists, 

 it was wanting not very long since, and that in some of them 

 [e.g. in New York and to the west of the Mississippi) it was 

 only introduced about seventy or even sixty-five years ago. We 

 first find the Bee in West Florida in the year 1763; in 1780, 

 first in Kentucky ; a little before 1793, first in New York ; since 

 1797, westward of the Mississippi. (In English North America, 

 according to Josselyn, it existed as early as the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, having been introduced there from England.) Thus the 

 difi"usion of the Bee has taken place in North America in a 

 north-westerly direction. The introduction into West Florida 

 by the English took place in 1763 ; in 1764 the Bee was intro- 

 duced from Florida into Cuba, but from San Augustino in East 

 Florida, where, according to Bartram, the insect existed at the 

 end of the seventeenth century, having pi'obably been intro- 

 duced by the Spaniards. This joint introduction by the English 

 and Spaniards is borne out by the fact that amongst both these 

 nations we find the dark form of the Honey-Bee, which also is 

 the one occurring in America ; whereas the Asiatic form, from 

 which the American Bees would most probably have descended 

 had their migration taken place naturally, is the most light- 

 coloured. 



The extraordinary manner in which the Honey-Bee has thriven 

 in America since its introduction is shown most strikingly by the 

 production of wax in Cuba, where the cultivation of Bees has 

 been carried on very extensively since 1772. According to 

 Humboldt (Essai polit. sur Cuba, i. p. 259), the average ex- 

 port of wax, between 1774 and 1779, was only 2700 arrobas 

 (=81,000 pounds); in 1803 it amounted to 42,700 arrobas 



• Essai polit. sur la Nouvelle Espagne, 1811, tome ii. p. 456; Essai 

 polit. sur I'ile de Cuba, 1826, tome i. p. 259. 



