Stingless Bee

Tribe Meliponini — the stingless bees — contains over 500 species across the Neotropics, Sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and Australia, and is the second-most-diverse group of eusocial bees on Earth (after honey bees, Apini). Despite being closely related to honey bees, all Meliponini have vestigial stingers and CANNOT sting — they defend their nests instead by biting (some species painfully), by releasing irritating chemical sprays from mandibular glands, or by mass-attack swarming behavior. Stingless bees produce 'meliponine honey,' a more liquid, more acidic, and lower-sugar honey than that of honey bees, harvested in small quantities and prized in Indigenous medicine traditions across all of Latin America, parts of Africa, and Australia. Melipona beecheii — the 'Xunan kab' of the Maya — was the central species of pre-Columbian beekeeping in Mesoamerica: the species was kept in hollow log hives ('jobones') across the Yucatán for over a thousand years, the honey was used in religious ceremonies, and the species was central to several Maya creation myths. Modern Melipona beekeeping (meliponiculture) is enjoying a revival across the Yucatán as both a sustainable agriculture practice and a cultural-heritage preservation effort. Some Trigona species earn the name 'firebee' for their painful defensive bites and chemical sprays. The Australian sugarbag bees (Tetragonula) are increasingly kept as urban-friendly stingless pollinators.