>From: "Kris Woolley" <[log in to unmask]>
>I have a faint recollection of  learning about stinger-less honey bees
being found in areas of Mayan ruins in central America.

This was discussed at length by me and others. Search the archives for
"melipona". By the way, they are called stingless bees. And you don't want
these bees, as they produce little honey, gummy wax, and cannot survive
where it is cold.

According to Eva Crane, in "The Archaeology of Beekeeping" (pp. 61-62)

"honey hunting and beekeeping in hives were already developed in prehistoric
times, although not many records of it survive. There are no native
honeybees in America, and the bees used were various species of stingless
bee (Meliponini); they build rather amorphous nests from which honey and wax
were harvested. The earliest surviving written account is by Bishop Diego de
Landa who arrived in Yucatan in 1549."

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