"apple-bee", 1846

[Joel S. Berson]

"I once had the pleasure of spending a winter where sleigh-rides, and
apple-bees, and spelling schools and grammar schools, constituted a
very delightful complement of the useful and ornamental."

By Fanny Forester.  From Graham's Magazine for July.  "The Great
March Holiday".  [Otherwise known as "The Spring Break"?]  The North
American, (Philadelphia, PA) Tuesday, June 30, 1846; Issue 2258; page
1, col. 3.  19th-C. U.S. Newspapers.

This antedates all OED quotations that apply a modifier to "bee"
(n.1, sense 4).

Joel

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