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Our honeybee, Apis mellifera, is not native to the Americas, but they used to cultivate stingless bees for honey production. This practise has nearly died out now, but could be revived for the low cost production of small amounts of honey, which is used mainly for medicinal purposes.
Must admit that this post piqued my interest and I was doing a little bit of reading. Certainly in places like Nicaragua Melipona/e honey appears to attract a premium price compared to Apis Mellifera honey and I must admit that given the choice it sounds a much nicer bee to work with (stingless!) than potentially having to deal with Africanised Apis Mellifera colonies.