[T-Bone Texan]

It blows me away that before the coming of the white man there were no bees in North America.

How does a pioneer import bees? Who did it?

I’d like to thank him.

Who invented the pesticides that are killing bees en masse in North America?.

I’d like to punch him.

For the bees, not for me.

[Blurb2350]

It’s not just the proliferation of pesticide use. It’s also the turn to mono-cropping -— thousands of acres of soy or corn and nothing else. That, and the practice by professional beekeepers to truck their hives around the country to pollenize these crops. It’s really hard on the colonies, and the lack of variety weakens them and makes them vulnerable to parasites and disease.

[Carthego delenda est]

Here’s a bit of information about the first honeybees to arrive in America. According to the article, they arrived in Jamestown around 1621.

http://www.orsba.org/download/Honey%20Bees%20Across%20America.html

Reading elsewhere, there are fossils that show a different variety of honeybee that was native to N. America but went extinct.

[Daffynition]

Bee hives were brought to Jamestown in the 1600s; Horticulture was a big deal for the English settlers there; plant specimen collection and exporting them was popular.