are used to harvest rice, clear brush with machetes, or to build houses. Workers generally work without compensation but are provided with meals and often alcoholic beverages such as fermented chicha fuerte and seco. Bee History This use of the word bee is common in literature describing colonial North America. One of the earliest documented occurrences is found in the Boston Gazette for 16 October 1769, where it is reported that "Last Thursday about twenty young Ladies met at the house of Mr. L. on purpose for a Spinning Match; (or what is called in the Country a Bee)." It was, and continues to be, commonly used in Australia also, most often as "working bee". In literature Uses in literature include: "There was a bee to-day for making a road up to the church." – Anne Langton "The cellar ... was dug by a bee in a single day." – S. G. Goodrich "I made a bee; that is, I collected as many of the most expert and able-bodied of the settlers to assist at the raising." – John Galt, Lawrie Todd (1830) "When one of the pioneers had chopped down timber and got it in shape, he would make a logging bee, get two or three gallons of New England Rum, and the next day the logs were in great heaps. ... after a while there was a carding and jutting mill started where people got their wool made into rolls, when the women spun and wove it. Sometimes the women would have spinning bees. They would put rolls among their neighbors and on a certain day they would all bring in their yarn and at night the boys would come with their fiddles for a dance. ... He never took a salary, had a farm of 80 acres [324,000 m2] and the church helped him get his wood (cut and drawn by a bee), and also his hay." – James Slocum "'I am in a regular quandary', said the mistress of the house, when the meal was about half over. Mr. Van Brunt looked up for an instant, and asked, 'What about?' 'Why, how I am ever going to do to get those apples and sausage-meat done. If I go to doing 'em myself I shall about get through by spring.' 'Why don't you make a bee?' said Mr. Van Brunt." – Susan Warner, The Wide, Wide World