Melipona beecheii

STINGLESS BEE

Abeja (S) Ba’alel kaab (M)

Identification: Much of the bee’s body shows black with some yellow and brown stripes; it measures a bit less than a centimeter. Long, thin, brown papery tubes mark the nest entrance (Schwarz 1932).

Habitat: Ko’olel kaab live in tropical dry and wet forests, building hives in small caverns and crevasses.

Range: They range at least through Mexico down to Costa Rica and are native to the area (Schwarz 1932).

Similar species: Stingless bees are part of the Meliponinae subfamily; within the family exist two main genera: Melipona and Trigona. Trigona, probably the most common genus of stingless bees in the Maya area, measure somewhat longer than Melipona beecheii.

KO’OLEL KAAB have vestiges of a stinger, which they may try to poke you with, having forgotten that their stinger and venom dried up long ago. Their true defense is flying ton your nose and ears and hair and, if really angry, pinching you with their tiny front teeth. Bees give their life to protect the hive.

Ko’olel kaab build their hives in something hollow: a cavity formed by tree roots, a fissure in the wall of a ruin, a small cavern in the earth, or in the soft paper of a live termite nest. Extending from a cavity full of comb, a thin brittle entrance tube flares open like a flower. Brown and papers, the tube is filled with the constant traffic of small black bees coming and going (Schwartz 1948).

Years ago, one hundred or more, trees were laden with honeycomb. During a drought or when food was scarce, the Maya could live on the high-calorie sustenance, but today honey is a rare food to find in the forest. Maya beekeepers say that as there is less jungle and less pesticide-free water, the bees produce less honey. Today, in parts of Mexico and Central America, beekeepers’ sales of wax and honey are an important part of their livelihood (Chemas and Rico-Gray 1991).

Pictures of queen and worker bees, pieces of comb, and bee gods are drawn throughout old Maya codices (Tozzer and Allen 1910). The ancient Maya used wax for various things, although probably not as candles. Most important, wax was itz, a sacred manifestation of god, used in ceremony. The Postclassic Maya meliculturists (Melipona beehive owners) began to fast during the month of Zotz (September 140October 3), purifying their bodies for the following month’s (Tzec: October 2-23) celebration of bees (Sharer 1994). During Tzec they prayed to the four Bacabs, the four gods who each held up a corner of the sky and bore a special color and year, in particular they prayed to Hobnil to give them lots of honey. Hobnil closely resembles the Mayan word hobonil (“of the beehive”) and is the Bacab who resided in the east, overlooking the red Kan years. Beekeepers offered honey, wax, and copal to the bee gods (Thompson 1970) and drew their pictures using honey as their paint. At the end of the ceremony the Mayas prepared and drank balche, a beverage made from fermented honey, water, and the bark of the ba’al che’ tree (Lonchocarpus yucatanensis).

The ancient Maya domesticated stingless bees, keeping and raising them like a farm animal. In past times people provided small burrows for the bees to build their hives in. Traditionally a piece of a living hive was placed inside a hollow log. This acted as a seed for a new hive, and the bees began to build around the old nest. The needs of the log were sealed with clay plugs or stones and a new hole was carved in the side for the bees to use as an entrance. Hanging from a roof corner or within a home garden, the hive was easily accessible as a family needed honey or wax. The plugs were pulled from the hive and the sacs of honey scooped out. Ko’olel kaab store their honey in small ovals of wax that clusters together and break off easily.

In the wild, a hive or the site of a hive, can exist for decades. A young virgin queen bee is thought to go in search of a new nesting site along with a harem of female worker bees and males. Descending on a suitable cavern, the flurry of the swarm soon subsides into quiet, industrious working. The queen bee, until impregnated, remains indistinguishable from other worker bees. Once she begins to lay eggs, her abdomen swells to the point where she is nearly immobile.

Female worker bees prepare hexagonal wax cells, each filled with pollen and honey, in which bee eggs will be laid. Only young females can produce wax, excreting it form the back of their abdomens in the form of small white scales. The queen lowers her abdomen into the tax box and lays and egg in the bed of pollen and honey. Once submerged into the food, the queen turns around to examine her work and then goes on to the next cell. A worker bee bites and bends down the side of the hexagon in order to seal it closed. Only one bee seals the chests full of larvae, although if removed, another replaces her immediately. The larva eats the surrounding food and grows. Worker bees carry away bits of the wax cradle as they are no longer needed.

Eventually all the of wax is taken, used in other construction, and the larva spins itself into a silk cocoon.

The exact function of the male ko’olel kaab remains unclear: it may be simply to fertilize the queen, maintain the hive, or produce wax, although the latter seems unlikely. What is clear is the expulsion from the hive of many of the males at some point during the year. Cast and barred from the nest, they die outside in droves on the ground (Schwarz 1948).

Today, Maya beekeepers predominately raise a European honey bee (Apis mellifera), which is locally called abeja Americana. The European honey bee began to replace the ko’olel kaab in the 1930s and 1940s, when modern apiculture was introduced and honey production began to boom. The honey bee, which actually came to Mesoamerica from Europe along with the Spaniards in the 1500s, is valued for its higher rate of production, despite its lower quality. The aggressive honey bee can forage nectar from all types of blossoms and can adapt to less pristine, deforested environments whereas ko’olel kaab requires blossoms from trees twenty years or older. Ko’olel kaab, in Mayan, means “woman of the honey.” With the introduction of the honey bee, ko’olel kaab honey became reserved for medicinal and ceremonial uses (Chemas and Rico-Ray 1991).

A third type of bee is now common in Central America: the African honey bee. Having migrated up from South America, African honey bee. Having migrated up from South America, African bees have become increasingly common and are widely recognized for their aggressive behavior. African bees dispatch scouts that will buzz and hassle people trespassing into the bees’ territory. If you are buzzed in this way, leave quickly. A swarm of bees may soon follow; in addition to being aggressive, they deliver a painful sting.

Bees are the cupids of trees; they bring the pollen of one tree to the flower of another as they forage for the ingredients of honey. Ko’olel kaab carry their booty in tiny pouches attached to their hind legs. Worker bees, through pheromones, leave a trail of scent marks for other bees to follow to the sources of discovered food. The mark may last for two or three days, and bees forage both alone and in groups; each bee adds to the mark en route to the nest (Leuthold 1975). Ko’olel Kaab often visit chakaj fiddlewood, and ts’itts’il che’ (Gymnopodium floribundum), gathering pollen and nectar from each blossom. The best honey comes from the nectar of ts’itts’il che’ flowers, a tree that grows mainly in tropical dry forest. The bees turn its nectar into large quantities of thick, red, sweet-smelling and -tasting honey. The bees must visit over two million blossoms to make 0.45 kg of honey (Chemas and Rico-Gray 1991).

The honey produced from each strain of pollen and nectar has a unique taste, fragrance, color, and healing property. Some honeys cure sore throats, others consumption, constipation, or swollen injuries. Many of the Mayan names for trees and blossoms describe the healing they offer to humans. Ko’olek kaab honey can currently be brought to Merida, Mexico (Chemas and Rico-Gray, 1991).