Women Beekeepers Preserve Mexico’s Sacred Maya Melipona Bee

The “Melipona Bee Guardians Network” — locally called Muuch Ka’jal Kaabo’ob — was founded in 2012 to protect the native stingless Melipona bee of the Yucatán Peninsula. The cooperative brings together women beekeepers who breed, harvest honey, and sell related products while safeguarding a species whose loss would destabilize tropical ecosystems. According to the United Nations Development Program, the disappearance of pollinators would eliminate half of all plant species and 75 % of the foods and products people rely on.

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Meliponiculture dates back roughly 1,000 years; the Maya domesticated the bee for cultural, economic, and social value before colonization. Today, climate change, deforestation, pesticide use, and limited market support threaten the bees’ survival. The network follows traditional meliponary construction—palm-thatched roofs, angled for sun exposure, and hollow native logs (“jobones”) that mimic ancestral habitats.

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• Teresita de Jesús Hau Jiménez – technical-committee member, former textile worker, now cooperative leader.

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• Manuela Yam Pech – beekeeper from Tekax, former textile employee, now income earner.

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• Leticia Basulto – coordinator for Educampo, the nonprofit that helped launch the network.

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• Educampo – Mexican nonprofit promoting sustainable rural development.

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The network now manages more than 440 registered hives. A Melipona hive yields roughly 1.5 L (1.6 qt) of honey per year, far less than the 30 L (8 gal) produced by introduced European honeybees, but the honey is richer in fructose and sourced from medicinal plants. Members harvest three days before the full moon and use the honey to make soaps, shampoos, creams, lip balms, and propolis supplements. Income from meliponiculture has funded college tuition, food security, and personal expenses for the women’s families.

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• “It all began as a way to rescue parts of the ancestral culture left by our grandparents, our Maya, and that’s why we started with meliponiculture [stingless bee farming] but mainly we did it for our little bees, to take care of the environment,” — Teresita de Jesús Hau

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• “We enrolled at the university in Quintana Roo,” — Hau Jiménez

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• “Melipona honey helps the immune system, heals disease, wounds and burns, and is also used to make other products like soaps and creams,” — Hau Jiménez Despite

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• “It’s very important because they pollinate what we eat, and if this species stopped pollinating, we’d have no food left; maybe we’d starve,” — Hau Jiménez

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• “We’re realistic; we won’t reach tons because we depend on what the bee produces — that’s why they’re guardians,” — Leticia Basulto

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These statements illustrate the blend of cultural revival, ecological stewardship, and financial empowerment driving the women’s effort to keep the sacred Maya bee thriving.

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