Bee-Culture at Present i^j^j 



by settlers from Europe to America sometime in the seven- 

 teenth century, it is supposed, though the exact date is not 

 known. It is stated by some that the first were taken, 

 certainly with great propriety, by the Spaniards to Florida, 

 the land of flowers. 



They are there to-day, some in large and scientifically con- 

 ducted apiaries, some in old-fashioned box hives in remote 

 hammocks, adding to the meagre stores of their native 

 owners, who live in a cabin near them. 



In the " Bee Journal " for July, 1886, we read : — 



" When John Eliot translated the Scriptures into the 

 language of the aborigines of North America, no words 

 were found expressive of the terms 'wax' and ' honey.' " 



The first form of Apis Mellifica brought to this country 

 was the common " brown " or German bee, and it is this 

 variety which is still commonly kept in remote country 

 places, and this which at first filled the land with innumer- 

 able swarms of " wild bees." 



Until recently it was the only hive-bee we had, and it 

 is of this bee and the white clover, which also came to 

 North America with the European settler, that Hiawatha 

 sings, describing the coming of the conqueror : — 



" 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." 



The Indians are said to have foretold the approach of 

 the white man by the swarms of bees that shortly preceded 

 him^ — a form of divination whose prophecies have always 

 come true, and had the Red Man recognized in them an 

 emblem of misfortune to his race, as some of the ancients 

 did; that prophecy would also have come true. 



