I passed on the discussion of "Aztec honey" to two of my Anthropology
friends that specialize in studying the Aztecs and Mayas.  Thought you all
might find interesting.
 
Good grief, these bee folks are nutso!  What's the big deal about the Aztecs
having  bees and eating honey?  The Maya had bees.  And ate honey.  The Maya
had bee GODS!  They were stingless bees, and I don't know if those are Apis
menifera or what.  Wax and honey were important tribute items in Yucatan in
the early sixteenth century, and nothing (that I know of) suggests that bees
were introduced.  Wasn't honey one of the items in the canoe that Columbus
saw on his 4th voyage to the Indies?
 
Prudence M. Rice
Department of Anthropology
3525 Faner Hall, Mailcode 4502
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
Carbondale, Illinois  62901-4502
Tel:  618-536-6651
Fax:  618-453-5037
E-Mail:  [log in to unmask]
 
The issue of the production of honey during the period of Aztec hegemony in
Mesoamerica (ca. AD 1428-1521) is interesting.  One of the best graphic
sources on Aztec consumption of honey is the Codex Mendoza, an Aztec painted
manuscript prepared on the authority of Don Antonio de Mendoza, first
Viecroy of New Spain, shortly after the Spanish conquest, for dispatch to
the emperor of Spain, Charles V.  There are any number of facsimile copies
published and available in academic libraries.  The idea of the codex,
painted by an Aztec book artist (with a Spanish priest familiar with Aztec
language, Nahuatl, making notes and commentaries over the pages), was to
give the King of Spain information about his new dominions in the New World.
 
The second section of the codex, the Tribute Roll of Moctezuma, details the
tribute paid by over 400 conquered towns to the last ruler of the Aztec.
One of the prominent items of tribute is jars of honey, pictured on many of
the tribute pages.  The notations by the Spanish scribe suggest, however,
that many are "cantaros de miel de maguey," jars of honey derived from
maguey (the spiney "century plant," from which tequila is also produced).
Other notations indicate, however, tribute in the form of "cantarillos de
miel de abejas," little jars of honey from bees.
 
I haven't done an inventory of every tribute page, but the maguey honey
appears to come from arid, highland zones controlled by the Aztecs, while
the bee honey is part of the tributed demanded from moist, tropical lowland
zones.
 
Some of the amounts owed were enormous.  For example, one page lists ten
"hot country" towns that all had the same tribute requirements, among them
200 small pots of bee honey.  The kicker is that this quantity had to be
paid by each town every 80 days!  Given that perhaps as many as half of the
400 towns listed paid maguey and/or bee honey in some quantity every 80
days, the consumption of "honey" in the capital of Tenochtitlan (Mexico
City) must have been incredible.  And there's absolutely no question that
the keeping of bees and the production of honey was taking place on a very,
very large scale during this final century before the conquest, at least in
the lowland regions of Mesoamerica.
 
Don S. Rice
Center for Archaeological Investigations
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
3479 Faner Hall, Mailcode 4527
Carbondale, Illinois 62901-4527
Tel. 618/453.5031
Fax. 618/453.3253
E-Mail.  [log in to unmask]