The Melipona Honey Bee, Vanilla, and the Ancient Maya

Did you know that we would not have vanilla without bees?

It's true!

The vanilla orchid is a vine indigenous to the Yucatan that grows up a tree. It only blooms one morning a year and cannot pollinate itself.

Vanilla today would not exist without a tiny bee called the Melipona, which can navigate and pollinate the flower.

In 1519, Hernando Cortez brought back the vanilla plant but could not produce vanilla. It wasn't until 1836 that Moren went to Mexico and studied the plants. He discovered the bees pollinating the plant.

Photo by Dmitry Grigoriev

I have a personal relationship with honey, and it is very significant to me. I always buy local honey and keep manuka and neem honey in my cupboard.

Honey is beneficial for allergies, and prevents and treats illnesses.

 

Source: https://yourbeetingheart.com

The Mayans practiced apiculture, which is the fancy word for beekeeping. Melipona bees are stingless bees from the Yucatan. The Mayans used Melipona honey to treat people medicinally.

Photo by Jorge Ramírez

Mayans were both "Personalistic" and "Naturalistic" in treating disease. Personalistic etiologies refer to illnesses caused by "supernatural" forces or entities. Naturalistic etiologies relate to the "natural forces" that upset the balance in a person's "equilibrium."




To the Mayans, disease was a physical, mental, and spiritual punishment from the gods. If a man was cruel to his family, neighbors, or the vulnerable, this man would be punished by an illness. Other threats include places with great energy, such as caves, rivers, water springs, lakes, and forests, that could cause unfortunate events.

Photo by Robbie Herrera

The Mayans believed Melipona honey had an energy force called kinam, which means influential and respected. This energy is involved in a cycle of life. The importance of these bees goes back to the Mayans' spiritual beliefs. 

The sun's power is concentrated in plants, specifically in the flowers' nectar. That strength and energy are transformed into honey, which was used in conjunction with healing incantations.

Libro del Judío, translated into Book of the Jew, is a book by Vásquez 1983. It is a compiled collection of manuscripts put together by an Italian physician, Ricardo Ossado, who lived in the Yucatan Peninsula in the eighteenth century.

This literature describes how the Mayans used this honey and the bees' nests in medicine in ancient times to cure hot and cold diseases such as respiratory, digestive, and circulatory diseases, in addition to any other illnesses, poisonous or infectious. This honey was used alone or with other medicinal plants for all types of ailments, internal and external.

The Mayans' diagnosis of diseases was in the hot or cold category because certain entities came from that part of the Mayan universe. The purpose was to create balance.

Honey is naturally a hot remedy due to its origin, which is the perfect base for cold illnesses.

A cold disease would be treated with something hot. Cold diseases would include anything dark or damp, like respiratory illnesses. Other uses would include treating pregnant women and women in labor, which is still practiced today. Heart disease is another example of a cold disease.

For hot diseases, including fevers, infections, and inflammation, honey is heated with herbs, made into a beverage, and then cooled, making it a cooling remedy.

Reading about the medicinal plants in Northern Peru, it would make sense that in the Yucatán, this honey was created by bees collecting pollen from local medicinal plants. However, what I found interesting is that many recipes included ingredients from European imports like wine, vinegar, and spices—anise and pepper.

 

This honey was even used for sensory organs, rashes, and even what was described as smallpox. For skin burns, virgin honey was recommended to cover the wound, fresh from the hive.

Photo by Jimmy Salazar

Some treatments also used were from bees or wasp nests. An enema was created using honey, milk, and vinegar to draw out intestinal worms. Ceremonial drinks of water, honey, and the tree's bark, called balché, are still famous today.

Melipona honey is prized today for its medicinal and anti-microbial properties. Studies by bacterialists demonstrate how high levels of Bacillus in honey inhibit pathogenic bacterial growth. Also, hydrogen peroxide, an antibiotic found in all honey, dehydrates microbes or inhibits their development and is found to have zero toxicity to humans.


Another book written in 1987, called the Ritual de los Bacabes, was said to be a complete manuscript of rituals and ceremonies, but lacked essential examples of honey.

These bees are endangered today due to habitat loss and destruction, as well as the threat of European/Africanized honey bees.

"If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live."––– Albert Einstein

Reference


Ocampo Rosales 2013. Medicinal uses of Melipona beecheii honey by the ancient Maya. In: Vit P, Pedro SRM, and Roubik D, editors. Pot-honey. New York: Springer. p 229-240.