At the right you can see a Maya Bee nest made mostly of wax and plant fiber. Several bees are barely visible. The whole nest is only about the size of an adult's balled fist. It contains a honey that most say is better tasting than honey from honeybees. Of course it's easy to simply remove the nest, break it open and take the honey, but doing so would be a shame because it would so disrupt or destroy the bee colony.

The bees do not sting but they do tangle themselves in one's hair, and can bite, though the bite is only mildly painful. They are called Maya Bees because when the conquistadors arrived the Maya people raised these bees, and the bees' honey was important in Maya lives.