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Reports by FLAAR Mesoamerica
on Flora & Fauna of Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo
Peten, Guatemala, Central America
Stingless bees of Guatemala produce healthy honey (and pollen)
Updated June 11, 2021
First Posted May 18, 2021
When you drive towards the Yaxha entrance to Parque Nacional Yaxha, Nakum and Naranjo, a few kilometers before the park entrance, on the left side of the road (west side) there is a local family that depends on income from bee honey and bee pollen to survive.
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About 7 km towards Yaxha park entrance from the highway turnoff of La Maquina, you can find local honey at Don Goyo's bee area. Here is Roxana Leal, social media manager of FLAAR Mesoamerica, walking up towards the family-run business of Don Goyo. |
Members of the FLAAR team also bought several bottles of honey to assist the hospitable family. Don Goyo raises doncella bees (Melipona species, probably Melipona beechii) and tamagás (the slightly larger black stingless bee, potentially Cephalotrigona zexmeniae). We are preparing a full report (ready by June) and will double-check the species identification with bee-ologist Scott Forsythe.
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It helps local Mayan families if you can purchase their handicrafts at the PNYNN visitors center or obtain the honey directly from Don Goyo along the side of the road (his honey is not sold in any store; only directly from their family home).
To learn about stingless bees of the Mayan people you can ask Don Goyo to take you on a brief tour around his apiary so you can see the cute golden stingless honey bees. The tamagás bee tend to swarm into your hair (if you get too close to their hive), but they have no stingers. I am used to them.
Stingless bee honey is much more liquid than honey from European bees and nowhere near as thick as Manuka honey. So stingless bee honey is not “watered down,” it is liquid as is.
Howler Monkey, Alouatta pigra, list of suggested reading
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Photograph by Dr Nicholas Hellmuth, with a Nikon D5 Camera, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4e FL ED VR lens. 1/30 sec, f/11, ISO 5000 |
Today we are making available our extensive bibliography on Alouatta pigra, the more common black howler monkey of Peten and surrounding areas of Mesoamerica (southern Mexico and Central America).
The entire bibliography will be available as a FLAAR report as a .pdf in coming months, but in the meantime, for students, zoology professors, and people around the world who are curious about the howler monkey, on this page you can find lots to read.
Great Blue Heron, Ardea herodias, waterbird, Pacific Ocean inland marshes, Monterrico, Guatemala
We found and photographed two Great Blue Herons in the marshes inland from the Pacific Ocean coast of Guatemala. These tule reed marshes and mangrove swamps are west of Monterrico, Guatemala.
Next week we will be looking for waterbirds in Chocon Machacas Nature Reserve, Municipio de Livingston, Izabal, Guatemala, so on the Caribbean side of Central America.
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It sure helps to have an 800mm prime telephoto lens on a Nikon D5 camera. Because if you get closer, the birds simply fly away. This is not like Florida or other national parks where you can have a blind to hide in; here in the swamps and marshes of Guatemala there is nowhere to put a blind. All photography is from a boat (rocking in the wind and low waves). Photograph by Nicholas Hellmuth, January 17, 2021, FLAAR Photo Archive of Fauna of Guatemala. |
We thank Axel Cuellar, CECON, and his colleagues and two sons for helping arrange the boat each day so we could find and photograph diverse species of waterbirds on January 16 and January 17, 2021.
Venomous pit-viper in protected nature reserve Tapon Creek, Izabal, Guatemala
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We are interested in all flora and fauna that is shown in Classic Maya murals, stelae, ceramics, and figurines. Snakes, white tailed deer, and spider monkeys are the three most common animals in Maya art. There are no rattlesnakes known in the wetlands of the Caribbean part of Guatemala but plenty of pit vipers. Here is a nice example. We are also doing research and photography on all pollinators and we photograph all spiders and insects that we see during our hikes. Our primary focus is on waterbirds, since these are quite often pictured in Classic Maya paintings and on stelae. Rio Dulce and El Golfte, Municipio de Livingston, are great areas for waterbirds. |
Photograph by Lucas Cuz, park ranger, FUNDAECO, Reserva Natural Tapon Creek using Google Pixel 3 provided by FLAAR Mesoamerica. |
