We examine how beekeeping and the production of honey and wax on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula was transformed in the wake of the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion and industrial revolution. Honey and wax produced from stingless bees (Melipona beecheii) were key commodities circulated throughout the prehispanic, colonial, and postcolonial periods. European honeybees (Apis mellifera) were introduced by the late nineteenth century, as demand for honey and wax transformed ecologies, technology, vegetative communities, and beekeeping practices. We compare archaeological, paleoethnobotanical, and soil chemical evidence of an apiary, likely for Apis mellifera, with documentary evidence for mixed species beekeeping at Hacienda San Pedro Cholul, a henequen plantation situated on the outskirts of Mérida.

我们研究了 16 世纪西班牙入侵和工业革命之后，墨西哥尤卡坦半岛的养蜂业以及蜂蜜和蜡的生产是如何发生变化的。由无刺蜜蜂 ( Melipona beecheii ) 生产的蜂蜜和蜡是在前西班牙、殖民地和后殖民时期流通的主要商品。欧洲蜜蜂 ( Apis mellifera ) 是在 19 世纪末引入的，因为对蜂蜜和蜡的需求改变了生态、技术、植物群落和养蜂实践。我们比较了一个养蜂场的考古学、古民族植物学和土壤化学证据，很可能是意大利蜜蜂, 以及位于梅里达郊区的 henequen 种植园 Hacienda San Pedro Cholul 混合养蜂的文件证据。