Domesticating taxonomies: Classification and erasures in the shaping of the stingless bee of Yucatán

Abstract

Melipona beecheii is a stingless bee that has been bred by Maya communities in the Yucatán Peninsula for over 2,500 years, and it has played a crucial role in beekeeping practices since then. This paper reconstructs the entangled history of this bee in the archives of taxonomy. It does so by first reviewing its former names such as Xunan Kaab in Yucatec Maya, “Domestic Bee of Yucatán” and “Mexican Domestic Bee,” and then asking what is discarded when a scientific name is given. The paper then discusses how nineteenth-century naturalists and taxonomists erased its domestic character while standardizing its species name. The author argues that this erasure was not accidental and analyzes how the power of naming – or of erasing a name – in scientific practice is intertwined with forms of domination. To elucidate this, this article traces changes in taxonomic labels over time, including their inconsistencies and relationships to vernacular names marginalized in beekeeping history. In addition, it considers various sites of production, such as laboratories and haciendas, as equally valid sites of knowledge production and experimentation. The places and scientific spaces in which Melipona beecheii has been collected and observed have had a profound impact on the “politics of erasure” of its domestic character.