280 RACES or BEES 



CHAPTER IX. 



Eaces of Bees. 



645. The honey-bee is not indigenous to America. 



Thomas Jefferson, in his " Notes on Virginia," says: 



" The honey-bee is not a native of our country. Marcgrave 

 indeed, mentions a species of honey-bee in Brazil. But this has 

 no sting, and is therefore different from the one we have, which 

 resembles perfectly that of Europe. The Indians concur with us 

 in the tradition that it was brought from Europe ; but when and 

 by whom, we know not. The bees have generally extended 

 themselves into the country, a little in advance of the white set- 

 tlers. The Indians therefore call them, the white man's fly." 



" When John Eliot translated the Scriptures into the language 

 of the Aborigines of North America, no words were found ex- 

 pressive of the terms wax and honey." (A. B. J. July 3866.) 



Longfellow, in his "Song of Hiawatha," in describing 

 the advent of the European to the New World, makes his 

 Indian warrior say of the bee and the white clover: — 



'• Wheresoe'er they move, before them 

 Swarms the stinging fly, the Ahmo, 

 Swarms the bee, the honey-maker; 

 Wheresoe'er they tread, beneath them 

 Springs a flower unknown among us, 

 Springs the White Man's Foot in blossom." 



546. According to the quotations of the A. B. J., 



common bees were imported into Florida, by the Spaniards 

 previous to 1763, for they were first noticed in West 

 Florida in that year. They appeared in Kentucky in 1780, 

 in New York in 1793, and West of the Mississippi in 1797. 



54'y . "It is surprising in what countless swarms the bees have 

 overspread the far West within but a moderate number of years. 



