[Image description: The Destiel confession meme edited so Cas says I love you' and Dean answers 'A lost Maya city has been found in the forest in Mexico' End ID.]
Archaeologists from the USA and Mexico have found a previously unknown Maya city by studying LiDAR data from a 2013 forest survey.
It is located in the state of Campeche, and the researchers named it Valeriana after a nearby lake.
The city had over 6600 structures, and at its peak (750 to 850 AD) it may have housed over 30 000 people. The density of the buildings is second only to Calakmul.
This summer, we visited the beekeepers who place their apiaries inside our restored forest areas in Yucatán, Mexico. Talking to them was une
This summer, we visited the beekeepers who place their apiaries inside our restored forest areas in Yucatán, Mexico. Talking to them was unexpectedly energizing. Their knowledge, humor, and genuine love for the land made the whole visit feel alive. Here are some highlights from that day.
When we reached the apiary, it felt like entering a place the bees had completely taken over. The air was dense with movement and under the shade of young trees.
“Before, it was just grass and cows,” the beekeepers said. “Only grass. Nothing more.”
Now, this land is slowly becoming something else again: a place where trees, flowers, people, and bees coexist and depend on one another.
How a Loss Became an Unexpected Beginning
Paola, the beekeeper, grew up in Campeche, in the region where we do our restoration work.
“My father passed away when I was 17,” she said. “He left the hives, but he never taught me anything about them.”
She and her mother started visiting the hives simply because someone had to. A local farmer showed her the basics; that single gesture set the direction of her life. She later studied veterinary medicine, and she has now been a beekeeper for 25 years.
Paola’s partner Chris is from Tlaxcala, Mexico. He grew up around bees. His grandparents had them, his uncle had the and when she invited him to Campeche, he came. He stayed, officially “because of the bees,” but it’s clear the shared work and the shared life kept him there too.
Together, they run their apiaries as a team.
A Land That Finally Gets to Recover
We walked with them between young trees and shrubs that weren’t here a few years ago. Birds were active, and native plants were reclaiming the ground.
“This used to be a ranch,” they repeated. “Just pasture. And in pasture, bees have nothing.”
Native species like tajonal– one of the most important plants for honey- were routinely sprayed or cut. Once restoration began and the clearing stopped, tajonal returned quickly.
“Once they stopped fumigating, tajonal came back,” they said. “And with more flowers, the bees worked more.”
What they describe is something we’ve confirmed consistently at our restoration sites in Constitución. Bees directly support forest recovery. When they pollinate native species, those plants outgrow the invasive pasture grasses that otherwise smother young tree saplings and create fire risk during the dry season. More native cover means:
fewer grasses,
cooler ground temperatures,
less fuel for fires, and
higher survival of newly planted trees.
This is one of the reasons we partner with this beekeeping couple and allow their apiaries on our land. Their bees help our forest grow and our restoration areas help their bees produce better honey. It is a practical, mutual benefit — a match made in heaven.
Our restoration specialist, Oscar, once told them that after placing an apiary near a dense stretch of grass, the grass disappeared within three years and was replaced by native vegetation. That is the kind of landscape shift that makes long-term restoration possible.
Honey That Reflects the Land
The beekeepers explained how much the honey changed as the land changed.
“Back when it was all grass, we barely produced anything,” they said. “Now it’s completely different.”
More flowers mean more nectar. Cleaner land means cleaner honey. And, for them, the difference is measurable: quality, quantity, and stability all improved once restoration took hold.
Why Don’t More Beekeepers Work This Way?
It seems obvious: restored land benefits bees, so why aren’t more beekeepers here?
Beekeeping in Mexico is struggling:
rainfall is irregular and flower cycles are unstable,
honey prices collapsed from 60 pesos to 27 pesos per kilo in three years,
Mexico exports most of its honey and local consumption is low,
and the cost of managing hives keeps increasing.
Many families catch swarms when they appear, but abandon them in the difficult months. Only a few beekeepers in this municipality work full-time and this couple is among them.
They keep going because they believe in the activity and because the restored land finally supports their work.
A Partnership That Strengthens Both People and the Forest
The beekeepers began collaborating with Plant-for-the-Planet around seven years ago, when reforestation in Constitución was still young. They saw the landscape shift, tree by tree, and the bees responded quickly.
“You plant and the bees help,” they said. “And when the bees help, the land recovers faster.”
This partnership shows the intersectionality of forest restoration. Part of our work in Constitución is ensuring that the forest and the local community grow together. Restoring forests at scale is not possible without strong, long-term economic relationships with the people who live around them. Beekeeping is one of the clearest examples of this alignment:
the community gains a stable income source,
the forest gains active pollinators,
the restoration site gains resilience,
and everyone benefits from healthier land.
Forest restoration creates systems where people and ecosystems can rely on each other again. And here in Campeche, two beekeepers and thousands of bees have become an essential part of that system: carrying pollen, suppressing invasive grasses, and giving young forests the support they need to survive the dry seasons and the years ahead.
Sometimes the smallest partners make the biggest difference.
A student discovered by accident a huge Mayan city lost beneath the Mexican rainforest.
In the heart of Campeche, archaeologists found pyramids, sports fields, roads that connect districts and even amphitheaters. An entire hidden complex called Valeriana, revealed thanks to Lidar technology (a laser that allows you to see structures beneath vegetation).
This finding is considered the second in density after Calakmul, the largest Maya site in pre-Columbian America.
The most interesting thing is that it was discovered when Luke Auld-Thomas, a PhD student at Tulane University (USA.. ), I was browsing on page 16 of Google and came across a Mexican environmental study.
Once again, the greatness of our Mayan culture resurrects from the earth to remind us who we are.
Xibalba (Shee-bal-ba) was the name the K'iche Maya gave to the underworld. For the Yucatec Maya the underworld was known as Metnal. The name Xibalba translates as 'Place of Fright', which indicates the terror the place had in the Maya imagination. There was, unfortunately, not much chance of escaping the place, either. Ideas such as leading a good life and avoiding eternal torment by not doing bad things were not part of the Maya belief system, as only those who died a violent death avoided Xibalba. The underworld was a truly fearsome place, strongly associated with water; it had its own landscape, gods, and blood-thirsty predators. Xibalba was also the scene of many adventures by the heroes of Maya mythology, especially the Hero Twins.
The Geography of Xibalba
For the Maya Xibalba lay to the far west, hence the great number of burials made on the islands of Campeche, located off the west coast of the Yucatan peninsula, making it the most western Maya territory. Xibalba was entered through a cave or area of still water in Tlalticpac, which was the surface of the earth and the first of the nine underworld levels. The Milky Way was also considered an entrance to Xibalba and the road along which souls walked to meet their fate. The Maya, believing the underworld had nine different levels, represented this idea in the gigantic stone pyramids they built as tombs for their kings which often have nine tiers. See, for example, the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque, Temple I at Tikal, or the Pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza.
The Maya believed that the underworld was ruled by a group of gods (possibly 9 or 14), known collectively as the lords of the underworld. These have fearsome names and include 1 Death and 7 Death (the two most important), Pus Master, Bone Sceptre, Skull Sceptre, Jaundice Master, Blood Gatherer, and Bloody Claws. Many of these lords could occasionally come up to the world of the living where they would spread misery and disease. The Maya also believed that each astronomical god had its own manifestation in the underworld. For example, the Sun God K'inich Ajaw, when he was travelling through the underworld at night, became the Jaguar God of the Underworld.The most important Maya religious book, the Popol Vuh, describes some details of the geography within Xibalba. The underworld is vast with as much variety in landscape as the outside world of the living. Further, there are two great rivers, perhaps more, which run through it. To reach the ninth level of Xibalba, many trials and dangers had to be faced by the dead. These included the crossing of dangerous waters and high mountains, rivers of blood, attack by spinning obsidian knives and arrows, and even the sacrifice of one's heart. To help the soul survive such an ordeal, the dead were buried or cremated with useful pieces of equipment such as weapons, tools, weaving kits, precious goods like jade, sustaining food such as hot chocolate, and even dogs (real or pottery effigies) to act as companions and guides.
