I can probably give, better than any one living, the history
of the first efforts made to introduce Italian bees into
this country; as I knew well the late Messrs. Samuel Wagner
and Richard Colvin, and Messrs. S. B. Parsons and P. G.
Mahan, who, with myself, were the first to import them.
Messrs. Wagner and Edward Jessop, both residents of York,
Penn., received from Dzierzon, in 1856, a colony of Italian
bees which had starved on shipboard. Mr. Wagner's letter
to me, August, 1856, and given the next spring, in my 2nd
edition on bees, is the earliest notice, published in this
country, of the Italian race of bees. Messrs. Wagner and
Colvin, subsequently, bought a few queens of Dzierzon,
which were consigned to the care of the surgeon of a Bremen
steamship, who had been carefully taught what precautions to
use for their safety. Fearing that the bees might sting his
passengers, the captain would not allow them to be put on his
vessel.
“In the winter of 1858-59,” (I quote from Mr. Colvin's able
article on beekings, in the Report of the Commissioner of
Agriculture for 1863, page 530,) “another attempt was made
by Mr. Wagner, Rev. L. L. Langstroth, and myself. The order
was placed in the hands of the surgeon of the steamer, to
whose charge the bees were to have been committed, but in
consequence of his determining to leave the ship, the effort
failed.[A] Subsequently arrangements were made, in the latter
part of that year, and we received 7 living queens. Only two
or three young queens were reared by us during that fall and
winter, and in the following spring we found that all our
imported stock had perished. In conjunction with Mr. Wagner,
I determined to make another trial; the queens, however, did
not arrive until June, 1860.”
[Footnote A: Mr. Colvin, having formed the acquaintance of
the German Captain, not only convinced him that the bees
could not escape to injure anyone, but inspired him with
a strong desire to be the first to bring over in his own
vessel, this valuable race of bees. It would require quite a
volume to tell, at length, what sacrifices of time were made
by Messrs. Wagner and Colvin, to secure these bees.]
Our queens, which came in 1859, were in charge of a German
resident of Brooklyn, N. Y., who was returning home from
a visit to his friends, and to whom Mr. Wagner had given
very careful directions how to care for them. This person,
learning that Mr. Mahan had expressed the intention of having
the honor of landing, in America, the first living Italian
bees, and desiring, as he told me, to secure this honor for
us, communicated Mr. Mahan's intention to the captain, who,
as soon as the gang-way was in place, was the first person to
step ashore, proclaiming with a very loud voice: “These are
the first Italian bees ever landed on the shores of America!”
In the spring of 1856, Mr. S. B. Parsons, of Flushing, L. I.,
invited me to visit him, and advise with him as to the best
way of managing his Italian bees. On my way, I called upon
Mr. Mahan, who was joint owner with me of a large interest
in my patent hive. He gave me a very graphic account of his
visit to the apiary of the Baron Von Berlepsch, from whom he
obtained a queen, and supplied me with a few Italian workers
for Prof. Joseph Lidy, that he might determine how the length
of proboscis, in that variety, compared with that of the
black bee. On arriving at Flushing, Mr. Parsons showed me
five hollow logs, or “gums,” placed in an old bee-shed. It
was a warm, sun-shiny day, and I saw only an occasional bee
flying out from one of the hives. These colonies had been
purchased in Italy, carried safely on the backs of mules over
the Alpine passes, to Genoa, from which port they were safely
shipped to New York; but by a succession of mishaps, four of
them died at Flushing. The fifth contained a mere handful of
bees, with their queen, which I introduced to a colony of
black bees. It is hardly necessary to say that none of these
hives were ever in the same vessel with Mr. Mahan.
On the 18th of April, the steamer Argo arrived in New York,
after a tedious and stormy voyage. Mr. Herman, a German
bee-keeper, and author of a work on the Italian bee, who had
been furnished with a large sum of money by Mr. Parsons to
buy Italian bees in the best districts of Italy, and who had
agreed to bring them over in the original hives, and breed
queens for Mr. Parsons, _was not on board_, but in his place,
a young Austrian, by the name of Bodmer. On the 19th, as soon
as the bees were allowed to be landed, they were carried to
Flushing. The small boxes in which they were put up were
in three different packages, one of which was consigned
to the U. S. Government, one to Mr. Mahan, and one to Mr.
Parsons. As the Austrian said that he knew, by examination on
shipboard, that the bees were in a very bad condition, and
many of them already dead, and, as the day was very pleasant,
they were all examined under my personal supervision, and I
can assure Mr. Robinson that every colony consigned to the
Government and Mr. Mahan, was dead. A few, only, of those
marked for Mr. Parsons, had living queens, some of which soon
died, and in a short time he found himself the possessor of
only two queens, one of which was the queen found alive upon
my arrival at Flushing.
By my advice, Mr. Wm. W. Cary, of Coleraine, Mass., a very
skillful bee-keeper, and a thoroughly trustworthy man, was
sent for by Mr. Parsons. One of the queens was entrusted
to his care, on the premises of Mr. Parsons, and the other
to Mr. Bodmer, some distance off, who did not raise queens
enough even to pay for the black bees and honey which were
purchased for his use; while Mr. Cary Italianized a large
apiary for Mr. Parsons, besides filling all his orders for
queens.
One hundred and eleven queens were carried to California,
by Mr. A. J. Biglow, 108 of which reached there in good
condition. This small per cent. of loss was, in part, owing
to the skillful supervision of Mr. Biglow, and to the
purifying flight which, by my advice, he gave them on the
Isthmus of Panama; but all his precautions would have been
of no avail but for the judicious way in which they were
prepared by Mr. Cary and himself, for so long a voyage. The
bees sent to Mr. Parsons were in cigar boxes, into which the
combs were merely crowded or wedged: the loosening of the
combs on so rough a voyage killed some of the queens, while
others were drowned, with their bees, in honey; and others,
still, starved from the boxes being over-crowded with bees.
It is hardly necessary to contrast Mr. Biglow's success with
the heavy losses sustained for years by those who imported
bees from Europe. The result of Mr. Parsons' dealings with
Herman were, that for $1,200 advanced to him, he had only 2
queens to show. The next season Mr. Bodmer, having learned
how to pack bees for a sea voyage, brought over a number of
queens in good condition, for Mr. E. W. Rose, but was very
unfortunate in the management of them. Herman came, some
years after, to this country, and was employed by a friend of
mine in Philadelphia, to purchase for him, in Italy, a large
number of queens. The return voyage was long and stormy, and
every queen died on board the steamer.
Oxford, Ohio, March 5, 1881.
For the American Bee Journal.
A Good Way to Promote Bee-Keeping.