Honey Bees by Gene Hickman

Honey Bees by Gene Hickman From the T&LR Spring 2006

A while back I was listening to a presentation by a Lewis & Clark interpreter. He was telling how the expedition brought candle molds with them and when they ran out of candles they were able to gather bee’s wax [and honey] along the way to replenish their candles. I have since seen several Mountain Man or Buckskinner presentations where they either make bees wax candles or tell how the “mountain men” would make candles from bee’s wax they gathered or traded from the Indians. This is all highly unlikely, unless they brought their own bee’s wax, as honeybees are an exotic (imported) species and had not spread much beyond the Mississippi River by 1820. These are another instance of someone repeating what they’ve heard or assumed, without researching the facts, and/or wanting to show off using their candle molds.

Honeybees probably originated in Tropical Africa and spread from South Africa to Northern Europe and East into India and China. They were brought to the Americas with the first colonists and are now distributed world-wide. Many Indians called the bees “white-man’s flies”. The first record of the introduction of honey bees to the western hemisphere was in 1530 in South America. Tradition usually says that bees were introduced to North America by colonists from Holland in 1638. However, there is also information indicating that colonies of honey bees were shipped from England and landed in the Colony of Virginia early in 1622. One or more shipments were made to Massachusetts between 1630 and 1633, others probably between 1633 and 1638 (Ortel, 1976). Since bees use a broad range of plants they have become widely dispersed and are now found throughout the world. Generally the honey bees spread across North America at about the same rate and at times a little ahead of white settlement in each new area. However, by our era they had not yet spread to the Rocky Mountains.

Here are some dates for expansion of the honey bees: Connecticut, 1644; New York (Long Island), 1670; Pennsylvania, 1698; North Carolina, 1730; Georgia, 1743; Alabama (Mobile), 1773; Mississippi (Natchez), 1770; Kentucky, 1780; Ohio, 1788; and Illinois, 1820 (Oertel 1976). By 1800, honey bees were widely distributed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River.

Lewis June 10, 1805 …there are no bees in this country, nor have we met with a honey bee since we passed the entrance of the [NB: Kanzas] river (Moulten, 1995).— Its western limit in 1804 would probably be closer to the Osage River than to the Kansas as Biddle amended the journal. It was also probably Biddle who drew a red vertical line through this passage about…the honey bee (Werner, et al, 1982).

Lewis in summarizing his zoology for the trip on May 30, 1806 …the honey bee is not found here (Moulten, 1995).

Clark mentions that when he was going up river he saw honeybees as high up as the Osage River and then on the return he saw them near the Kanzas in trees. He also mentions that honeybees were introduced into Kentucky by settlers and that there were none in Illinois when the French settled there (Jackson, 1978).

John Bradbury (1819) says in 1809 …At that time the natural history of the bee was not very well known at St. Louis. They relate there, that a French lady of that place having received a present of honey from Kaskaskias, was much delighted with it, and being told it was produced by a kind of fly, she sent a negro with a small box to Kaskaskias (60 miles) to get a pair of the flies, in order that she might obtain the breed.

6th [May 1810?].-Walked all day, and in the afternoon -met the hunters, who had found a bee tree, and were returning to the boat for a bucket, and a hatchet to cut it down. I accompanied them to the tree. It contained a great number of combs, and about three gal Ions of honey. The honey bees have been introduced into this continent from Europe, but at what time I have not been able to ascertain. Even if it be admitted that they were brought over soon after the first settlement took place, their increase since appears astonishing, as bees are found in all parts of the United States; and since they have entered upon the fine countries of the Illinois and Upper Louisiana, their progress westward has been surprisingly rapid. It is generally known in Upper Louisiana, that bees had not been found westward of the Mississippi prior to the year 1797. They are now found as high up the Missouri as the Maha nation, having moved westward to the distance of 600 miles in fourteen years. Their extraordinary progress in these parts is probably owing to a portion of the country being prairie, and yielding therefore a succession of flowers during the whole summer, which is not the case in forests. Bees have spread over this continent in a degree, and with a celerity so nearly corresponding with that of the Anglo-Americans, that it has given rise to a belief, both amongst the Indians and the Whites, that bees are their precursors, and that to whatever part they go the white people will follow. I am of opinion that they are right, as I think it as impossible to stop the progress of the one as of the other. We encamped this night at the bottom of an island (Bradbury, 1819).

Honey bees may have been taken to Alaska in 1809 and to California in 1830 by the Russians, according to Pellett (1938), but no records are available as to whether they survived. In the 1850's, bees were shipped from the Eastern States to California. A few hives were taken over land, but most of the hives were sent by ship to Panama, by land across the Isthmus, and then by ship to California. Probably, the bees reached Oregon and Washington from California in natural swarms or in hives taken there by settlers. There are no dependable records that describe how bees spread westward from the Mississippi River into the Mountain States. It seems likely, however, that bees moved into these areas the same way they did into Oregon and Washington; that is, in natural swarms or in hives carried by the early settlers.

Beekeeping in the United States - USDA - Agricultural HandBook Number 335

Bradbury, John. 1819. Travels in the Interior of America, in the Years 1809, 1810, and 1811. 2nd Edition. Sherwood, Neely, and Jones Publ. London.

Jackson, D. 1975. Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. University of Illinois. Urbana.

Moulten, G.E. ed. 1995, The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

Oertel, E. 1976. Early Records of Honey Bees in the Eastern United States.American Bee Journal 116, 5 parts, Feb.-June.

Pellett, F.C. 1938. History of American Beekeeping. 393 p. Collegiate Press, Ames, Iowa.

Werner, Floyd G., et al. 1982. Common Names of Insects and Related Organisms, College Park, Md.: Entomological Society of America, 1982.