>I've been in a discussion with the historical food group, lately, about
>supposed Aztec beekeeping.  I have pointed out that Apis mellifera was
>an introduction from the Old World, and the progress of feral and kept bee
>colonies is pretty well tracked, not making serious inroads on North America
>until the mid-19th century.  Hence, the supposed Aztec beekeeping and
>consumption of "honey" was highly suspect, and probably a misinterpretation.
 
No, it just wasn't honeybee honey.
 
>However, the proponent of Aztec beekeeping is insistant.   I have allowed
>that they might have been exploiting some other bee or related insect for
>wild honey in some form, since I am familiar with honey ants. Therefore, I
>figure I'll put it out to the list.  I told her I'd send her a summary of
>opinions.
>
>Jane B.   [[log in to unmask]]
>-------------------------
>OK if there were no honey bees, then what were the Aztec drawing on there
>Codecs that looked like them, and what were they eating that the Spanish
>in 1519 described as honey?Do you have any suggestions as to what they
>could have been refering to?
>_Jennifer Edwards-ring
 
That's an easy one to answer, and pretty well-studied (I seem to recall an
entire book on the history of bees in the New World, even - anyone know the
one I'm thinking of?) - there are dozens of species of Stingless Bees
(Meliponini) in the New World tropics that store honey in their colonies,
and these bees have been exploited for this resource by native peoples (a
common species used for this purpose by the Aztecs is Melipona beechei,
maybe M. fasciata, as I recall). The nests are usually in tree hollows, and
destroyed in the process of harvesting. At any rate, they're closely
related to honeybees, but have numerous and substantial differences in
their biology and ecology; and given that there are fossils in amber at
least 80 million years old, they've been around a long time. While there
are also some Neotropical Polybiine paper wasps (like the genus
Brachygastra) which will store honey in their nests, I doubt that that's
related to the "Aztec beekeeping" issue.
 
Doug Yanega       Illinois Natural History Survey, 607 E. Peabody Dr.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA      phone (217) 244-6817, fax (217) 333-4949
 affiliate, Univ. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Dept. of Entomology
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82