The first record of an African honeybee was Carl de Greer's description of Apis (fllivo-cincta) nigra in 1778; the specimen was probably found at or near the Cape of Good Hope. In 1804 P. A. Latreflle described various African races: Apis unicolor in Madagascar and Mauritius, the Egyptian honeybee Apis lamarkii, and Apis adansonii found by Adanson in Senegal. In the first volume of Entomographien published in Berlin in 1822, Escholtz described Apis capensis in the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1936 Lepletier described Apis nigritrum in Central West Africa and Apis scutellata in Eastern and Southern Africa.
