Mayan Melipona

• GeneralThe Maya kept it for centuries for its medicinal honey; it cannot sting.
• The Maya kept it in hollow logs sealed at both ends, called jobones, and named it Xunan kab, the lady bee; their meliponiculture is one of the oldest beekeeping traditions in the Americas.
• Its sting is vestigial and it cannot sting: it defends itself by biting and by tangling itself in the intruder's hair.
• Its honey, runnier and more acidic than that of the European honeybee, is traditionally used as a remedy for eye and throat complaints.
• The Maya domesticated it more than 3,000 years ago: they call it xunan kab, lady bee, and it appears in the Madrid Codex alongside the bee god Ah Mucen Kab.
• It has no sting, but it bites when it feels threatened, and coordinates the collective attack with pheromones from its mandibular glands.
• Maya beekeepers in Quintana Roo report a 93% fall in the number of hives over the last quarter-century, from deforestation, hurricanes, pesticides and competition from the European honey bee.
• Queen, workers and drones are roughly the same size, which is unusual in social bees.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat and environment

Rainforest and traditional Maya orchards

Sexual maturity

The drones leave the nest 18 days after emerging; the gynes set out on a nuptial flight of about six minutes on average. Unlike Apis, the mated queen never swarms or leaves the colony: it is a virgin queen that departs with part of the population to found the new nest

Litter / clutch size

Permanent colonies with a single mated queen and anything from a few dozen to thousands of workers and drones; the royal cells are mixed in with those of the workers and drones, with no special queen cells

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Melipona beecheii · CICY (Bacab-Perez & Canto 2020) · iNaturalist Mexico (Cauich-Kumul et al. 2015) · Gobierno de Mexico (SADER), ficha Melipona beecheii · CICY · Ficha de especie de Melipona beecheii (Cauich-Kumul et al. 2015) · Ficha de especie de Melipona beecheii (Cauich-Kumul et al. 2015) via iNaturalist Mexico · Pech-May et al. 2012 y Van-Veen & Sommeijer 2000 via iNaturalist Mexico · Villanueva et al. 2005 via iNaturalist Mexico

Best time: Active all year in tropical and subtropical regions, from Mexico to Costa Rica; the nests are housed in hollow trunks and the nest entrance is of clay