We stopped at a small roadside restaurant near Tulum and there in the midst of all the condiments was a log nest of stingless bees. These tiny dark creatures resemble flies at first glance, but upon closer inspection, I noticed they were going into a carefully sculpted entrance (circled in red and zoomed in below).
For thousands of years Mayans kept STINGLESS bees (Melipona beecheii) before the Spanish arrived, but these have gradually been replaced by European races of honeybees (Apis mellifera), which I understand to be somewhat more honey-producing than the stingless ones. Mayan bee keepers harvested honey from the log nests of stingless bees to use as a sweetener, as an antibiotic and as an ingredient in the Mayan version of mead. Stingless bee keeping in the Yucatan has declined drastically due to cultural change and habitat loss. Most of these beekeepers are old men living in rural areas where no one inherits their knowledge of the fine art of how to propogate bees by dividing nests. There seems to be a renewed interest amongst a select few and so it’s really nice to see these honey producers in a populated area. Bees are probably the MOST important insect in the world as their role of pollination is critical to plants and then probably a myriad of other roles that we have yet to discover!
We stopped at a small roadside restaurant near Tulum and there in the midst of all the condiments was a log nest of stingless bees. These tiny dark creatures resemble flies at first glance, but upon closer inspection, I noticed they were going into a carefully sculpted entrance (circled in red and zoomed in below).
For thousands of years Mayans kept STINGLESS bees (Melipona beecheii) before the Spanish arrived, but these have gradually been replaced by European races of honeybees (Apis mellifera), which I understand to be somewhat more honey-producing than the stingless ones. Mayan bee keepers harvested honey from the log nests of stingless bees to use as a sweetener, as an antibiotic and as an ingredient in the Mayan version of mead. Stingless bee keeping in the Yucatan has declined drastically due to cultural change and habitat loss. Most of these beekeepers are old men living in rural areas where no one inherits their knowledge of the fine art of how to propogate bees by dividing nests. There seems to be a renewed interest amongst a select few and so it’s really nice to see these honey producers in a populated area. Bees are probably the MOST important insect in the world as their role of pollination is critical to plants and then probably a myriad of other roles that we have yet to discover!
2 comments:
I can't decide between the octopus or the conch ceviche. Suggestions?
gvr
Entonces los dos!!
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