About the APIS Site :

This is an extensively interlinked archive of individual issues of the APIS--Apicultural Information and Issues monthly newsletter, ISSN 0089-3764, published by the Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Department of Entomology and Nematology, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) at the University of Florida from 1984 until 2001. It is organized in a number of ways to facilitate finding information.

History of the Beekeeping Extension newsletter at The University of Florida

The first beekeeping specialist in the Florida Cooperative Extension Service was John D. Haynie. "Honey Haynie" began a newsletter called Hum of the Hive in the 1950s. It was regularly published until his retirement in 1971. Mr. Haynie also began the Florida Beekeepers Institute in 1957.  Hum of the Hive was taken up by Dr. Danny R. Minnick in September 1971. His "last issue" was written in August of 1972. At that time, 1,800 hundred persons subscribed. Thereafter, Dr. Freddie Johnson sporadically authored the newsletter along with Frank Robinson, until July 1981. The following month's issue was written by Dr. Malcolm T. Sanford, the author, who retired and became "Professor Emeritus," in 2001. 

In February 1983, APIS-Apicultural Information and Issues evolved from Hum of the Hive, taking on a different format with an upgraded logo. The first electronic issue came out in February 1984 on BITNET. Since then, APIS has been available worldwide via the INTERNET and World  Wide Web.  Parts of it have been archived across the Web on different sites. In 1989, the author published issues from Italy, in 1992, from Egypt, and a special collection of letters from France in 1997.

In 1994, the story of APIS was featured in the FARNET publication, 51 Reasons: How We Use the Internet and What it Says About the Information Superhighway, the lobbying document used to educate the U.S. Congress about the value of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). This formally recognized the newsletter as a pioneer on the Internet, the first information organ of its kind available on World-Wide Web.

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