Melipona beecheii

This stingless bee's natural range runs from Mexico to Costa Rica.

The species is widespread and also has populations on the Caribbean islands of Jamaica and Cuba.

In the wild, its nests are found only in hollows inside trees at least 30 cm around, trees that are now relatively rare.

Foragers most often visit the flowers of shrubs and trees.

Today it forages largely on secondary-growth plants, the vegetation that regrows after forest is cleared.

Maya beekeepers call it xunan kab or colel kab; xunan kab literally means the royal lady bee.

Maya stingless beekeeping is thought to predate the Spanish arrival by about 3,500 years.

The bee is kept almost only in traditional hollow log hives, known as jobones.

To start a hive, Maya keepers traditionally cut a section of hardwood log, such as Manilkara, that already contains a wild colony.

Among the Maya, its honey was also used to pay tributes, to perform rituals and to trade for goods.

A colony now produces about 2 kg of honey a year, compared with 20 to 30 kg from a western honey bee colony in the same region.

Beekeepers in the Maya zone of Quintana Roo, Mexico, report a 93% fall in the number of hives over about 25 years.

A later survey of randomly chosen beekeepers in the same area found their colonies fell from 480 to 206 over nine years.

Part of the decline is that the skills needed to keep and multiply colonies are not being passed on well to new keepers.