From: RSBrenchley@aol.com
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 09:30:58 EDT
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Punic bees

R.O.B. Manley, in 'Honey Farming' (1946, reprinted by Northern Bee Books,
1985), pp 22-3, says with regard to a certain John Hewitt:

"He managed to get from North Africa some Tunisian bees which he
christened 'Punics'. This was about 1892, I think, and Frank Benton had
brought some to the USA about the same time. However Hewitt started to push
these bees. He described them as being absolutely faultless in every respect,
and advertised virgins by hundreds. He went too far in describing them as
'proof against foul brood'."

(Long digression about Hewitt's feud with the British Bee Journal)

He was a clever man in his way, and seems to have been especially good at
raising queens. He claimed that he could with his Punics have a number of
virgin queens running loose in a hive together. This seems very improbable,
but Bartlett once told be that he had actually seen it. In any case Punic
bees do not appear to have been much good; they were a small black variety,
spiteful, and with the curious habit of biting as well as stinging. But all
this was in days gone by.

Manley may have had his prejudices; he wrote at a time when the native
A.m.m. was assumed to have been pretty much wiped out by acarine disease
(tracheal mite), and was a great proponent of prolific Italians. 'Punic' bees
seem to have had some interesting characteristics, but I've posted this to
show that 'African bees' in the broad sense have been with us on both sides
of the Atlantic for generations. Doubtless it would be possible to find
evidence of other old imports.