Melipona are among the largest stingless bees: stocky and hairy, close in size to a western honey bee (Brazil's Melipona scutellaris, for example, measures 10–12 millimetres). The genus has around 70 described species. Queens, workers and drones all develop in cells of the same size, so they are similar in size too.
They live in the Neotropics, from the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Tamaulipas to northern Argentina. Most species inhabit the humid lowland forests of Amazonia. Melipona beecheii, the Maya xunan kab, ranges from Yucatán to Costa Rica and also has large wild populations in Cuba.
They nest in the hollows of old trees. Colonies number from a few hundred to several thousand bees. Honey and pollen are stored in cerumen pots that can be as large as an egg. Thanks to their size they can pollinate flowers that release pollen only when vibrated, a technique known as buzz pollination.
The Maya kept xunan kab in hollowed logs called jobones, hung beneath shelters beside their homes. The tradition is some three thousand years old; the Madrid Codex devotes several pages to it, and the bees even had their own god, Ah Muzen Cab. The honey served as a sweetener, a medicine and an ingredient of the ceremonial drink balché.
Today the practice is in steep decline: among the beekeepers surveyed in Yucatán, the number of hives fell from more than a thousand in the 1980s to about 90 in 2004. Deforestation, agricultural chemicals and young people not taking up the craft are all to blame. Local groups are now working to revive it.