Original article

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Introduction

A series of papers published during the lastquarter century show a downturn in stinglessbee keeping in at least part of the Yucatánpeninsula, and attempt to analyse thecauses.10,19,20,27,46 Long before arrival of theSpanish in the New World and subsequentintroduction of a major honey resource fromthe Old World (honey bees – Apis mellifera),the Maya of the Yucatán peninsula wereexpert practitioners in husbandry of variousnative honey-making stingless bees, whichwere kept in log hives. Today and, we suspect,during historical beekeeping times, those beesused most for food and materials are thelarge-bodied meliponines, Cephalotrigona,Melipona and Scaptotrigona.3,27,37 Because of itsease of management (the large forager size,flight range and numerous virgin queens forcolony propagation are a particular asset ofMelipona) and excellent honey production,the favourite species has been Meliponabeecheii, known by its keepers as ‘xunan-kab’or ‘colel-kab’.27 It was apparently the only beepropagated using husbandry techniques in thewhole of the tropical world. These bees wereparticularly important to the Maya civilizationfor medicines (antibiotic honey), sweetenersand mead (balche), and a vital small-scaleeconomy. These bees even providedmetaphors for the Maya, whereby theyinterpreted their place in the universe andrelationship to the earth, deities, and later, tothe Spanish invaders.8,39 Xunan-kab were

regarded as a gift from the gods tohumankind and therefore were handled withutmost care and reverence by trainedbeekeepers.9

Melipona beecheii is one of several hundredbee species – almost all tropical meliponines– that produce abundant honey.21 This bee’snatural range is from Mexico to Costa Rica.3

Originally a resident of tropical lowlandforests, it was dependent on the variety andcycles of the forest resources, for example amajor flowering period and honey storageduring the dry season, followed by a dearthof nectar and pollen during the wettest partof the year, or in prolonged drought.29,45

Over the centuries, the Yucatán peninsula hasbeen deforested, first by the Maya and laterparticularly in the western and centralportion, where agave, sisal and cattle ranchingreplaced forest, as its people became moreinvolved in plantation schemes or cultural andeconomic alternatives to traditional slash andburn ‘milpas’ agriculture. As a result, xunan-kab (literally, the ‘royal lady’ bee) foragelargely among secondary-growth plants.42,44 Atboth large- and small-scale, Apis mellifera,despite its sting, was economically a betteroption for many, as it was not commonlyassociated with relatively low productivity andlow income.27 Hence the Mayan stingless beelost its place as provider of a sweetener (tosugar cane and to Apis mellifera) and tomodern pharmaceuticals as a provider ofmedicine. It now continually competes with

Apis mellifera for floral resources and nestingsites, and has lost, due to modern culturalchanges, central significance in Mayan customsand beliefs. Nonetheless, a potential boost tothe local economy may yet come from the re-establishment of a vigorous meliponiculture inYucatán.27 Because there were no publishedlong-term data that examine the biology andimpact of competition from introduced feralAfrican Apis mellifera, deforestation, hurricanedamage, natural enemies, lack of instructionfor new stingless bee keepers, or attendantlack of economic incentives for traditionalstingless bee keeping, we therefore made adirect inquiry with a survey of beekeepers

Extinction of Melipona beecheiiand traditional beekeeping inthe Yucatán peninsulaROGEL VILLANUEVA-G, DAVID W ROUBIK AND WILBERTO COLLI-UCÁN

Rearing of the ‘xunan-kab’ bee (Melipona beecheii) had been practised widely by the Mayans of the Yucatán peninsula long before arrival of the Spanish inthe New World, and had been a culturally and economically important activity in that region. Melipona beecheii is kept almost exclusively in traditionallog hives. Beekeepers using this bee, from the Mayan zone in Quintana Roo state, Mexico, testify to a 93% decrease in hives during the past one-quartercentury. Despite concern that stingless bee keeping is going extinct, there were scant data to examine direct impact of competition from feral African Apismellifera, deforestation, hurricane damage and lack of instruction and incentive for new stingless bee keepers.We therefore made a survey of beekeepersconstituting 20% of the largest traditional beekeeping group in the Americas. These data combined with our field studies, taken over 24 years, suggestthat bees are threatened both by environmental changes and by inappropriate management and conservation efforts. Overharvest and failure to transfercolonies to hives or divide them are serious impediments. The major tactics to confront these problems are presented.

FIG. 1. Map of the study area in thesoutheastern state of Quintana Roo,Mexico, and the Maya zone, in whichmeliponiculture was monitored.

and long-term focal studies in the relativelyforested area of eastern Yucatán peninsula, inthe state of Quintana Roo. We note bothsimilarities and differences, compared withthe previous work of a considerable numberof authors.

Melipona beecheii is apparently rare in thewild, even in forested areas,14 althoughtropical studies on stingless bee or honey beenest abundance are surprisingly scarce.16 Itsnests occur only in hollows within nowrelatively rare trees, of ≥ 30 cm girth.27 At thesame time, the traditional practice ofpropagating domesticated colonies is notbeing taken up by younger generations ofMaya. In short, apart from the sustainingefforts of a handful of enthusiasts,

meliponiculture, or stingless bee keeping, atleast in the areas that long have beendeforested, is disappearing.11,20,27 Severalinstitutions, business ventures, and non-government organizations are attempting todevelop stingless bee keeping. As discussedhere, we have observed stingless bee keepingefforts commonly fail in the Maya region, andtransplanted colonies are lost due to variedreasons. Moreover, the large number ofcolonies lost recently by meliponiculturistsand beekeepers in the states of Yucatán andCampeche, after hurricane Isidore, may wellbe irreplaceable.11 The objective of this workwas to analyse the biological problems relatedto the maintenance and management ofMelipona beecheii in the relatively well-forested portion of the Yucatán peninsula,

and determine reasons why populations havedeclined greatly within Mayan communities.

Survey

To compile data which enabled us to evaluatethe trends in stingless bee keeping, we tookstock of overall changes at the end of 2004 inQuintana Roo state, Mexico, in an areaknown as the ‘zona Maya’ (fig. 1). A standardset of questions was asked in the Mayanlanguage of meliponiculturists in the region.The data were assembled after first making acensus of all Mayan communities with morethan 50 inhabitants, for which populationdata15 were available. A total of 150communities were thus identified, and 120stingless bee keepers were found among

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TABLE 1. Number of Melipona beecheii hives that beekeepers from the zona Maya have kept in the last 54 years.

Name of Name of beekeeper No. of hives kept No. of hives kept No. of hives keptMayan community or institution between 1950 and at end of 1990 at end of 2004

end of 1981

Chan Santa Cruz Delfino Naal unknown 8 2

Chan Santa Cruz Nemesio Pot unknown 12 8

Chancá de Repente Bernardo Peûa 42 25 8

Chancá de Repente Anastasio Pérez unknown 10 0

Chancá de Repente Eduardo Yam unknown 5 0

Chunyá Patricio Canul 45 30 8

Felipe Carrillo Puerto Inst. Nacional Indigenista 0 40 8

Miztequilla Santiago Pat unknown 6 2

Miztequilla Fernando Yam 40 19 8

Naranjal Francisco Cimá 25 15 3

Naranjal Juán Mena 26 12 6

Nueva LorÍa Celestino Camal unknown 7 2

Nuevo Israel Ponciano Tun unknown 6 0

Palmas Margarito Tuz 220 5 0

Presidente Juárez Bernabé Kantún unknown 16 4

San Hermenegildo Humberto Ku Cauichl 60 40 0

Santa MarÍa Francisco HuiCab 50 37 7

Seûor Doroteo Pech 22 18 0

Seûor José Pott unknown 6 0

Tihosuco Pedro Cahun Uh unknown 5 12

Tuzic Isidro Peûa Tuz 200 40 8

X hazil Modesto Chuc 10 7 0

X hazil IsaÍas Cahuich 15 10 0

Yo Actún Rancho San MartÍn unknown 10 4

Totals likely >1000 389 90

them. Previous work by Quezada-Euán andcolleagues27 estimated that there were fewerthan 500 stingless bee keepers in all ofYucatán. We took a random sample of 24beekeepers in the zona Maya (20%) and askedthe questions in our standard questionnaire in1985, 1990 and 2004. The meliponiculturistsquestioned were not strictly beekeepers andnone had much formal education oreconomic means. Some examples of thequestions asked were:

● ‘How did you obtain your xunan-kabcolonies?’

● ‘How many did you inherit?’

● ‘How many do you have?’

● ‘Who taught you to manage the colonies?’

● ‘Do you use ‘rational hives’ (wooden boxhives)?’

● ‘How many log hives and rational hives doyou have?’

● ‘Do you divide (propagate) your colonies?’

● ‘How much honey do you produce?’

● ‘Where or to whom do you sell it?’

In addition, we conducted further interviewson the general state of stingless bee keeping,including both local and statewide problems.Periodically (every two or three months)beginning in 1985 we interviewed fivestingless bee keepers in order to learn ofspecific bee management problems. Thesewere open-ended interviews in which keyquestions were asked, such as:

● ‘What management problems have beenencountered?

● ‘Have you divided your colonies?’

● ‘Why have your colonies been weak or inpoor condition?’

● ‘What are the main reasons you are losingyour colonies?’

Thus, our study attempted to assess thestrengths and weaknesses of meliponicultureunder present conditions, threats andopportunities related to honey production.

Decline of meliponiculture activity

Table 1 shows results from the 24 traditionalmeliponiculturists that were interviewed in

the zona Maya of Quintana Roo, indicatingthe numbers of Melipona colonies kept at theend of 1981, 1990 and 2004. The mostalarming findings were that, out of the totalnumber of domesticated colonies (755)known to be held in 1981, and probablyhundreds more for which no precise recordswere offered by the participants, only 90 havesurvived or have been replaced. If weconsider only the meliponaries (‘bee yards’,fig. 2) in which the number of hives present in1981 was stated by the participants, then thedecline between 1981 and 2004 has been oneof over 93%.

Furthermore, nine out of the 24 questionedno longer had any colonies, a notablephenomenon within the last 14 years. Clearly,the keepers of xunan-kab either cannotmaintain their colonies adequately, or theylack sufficient reasons to keep them. Suchindividuals may not have found a successor toproperly care for the colonies, and they havefailed to replace colonies lost due tomortality. For the last 14 years the stinglessbee keepers have been losing, on average,about 22 colonies each year. Continuing thattrend, by the year 2008 there will be nodomesticated colonies left at all. Only PedroCahun-Uh, a meliponiculturist from Tihosuco,increased his colonies from 5 to 12 (table 1).He also divided three to produce three more,using wooden box hives. He was the onlybeekeeper who was successful in suchhusbandry efforts. None of the othermeliponiculturists used box hives, but ratherused traditional hollow log hives, or ‘jobones’.Significantly, many beekeepers were reluctantto risk losing their colonies to parasiticphorid flies, Pseudohypocera or ‘nenem’, whichoften attack and kill colonies that have beenmoved or disturbed by opening of the nestcavity.42

All Melipona colonies, except four belongingto Nemesio Pot from Chan Santa Cruz, wereinherited either from the fathers or thegrandfathers. Mr Pot obtained five of his loghives from wild colonies in the forest.

Loss of habitat

The peninsula of Yucatán (the states ofYucatán, Quintana Roo and Campeche), oncecovered with mature tropical forests(although not in some periods before thearrival of Europeans12), has been deforested

extensively in modern times. In the state ofYucatán, land reform programmes of the1930s, cattle ranching, logging and large-scalecultivation of agave plants for production ofsisal have resulted in nearly completedeforestation of that state.27 The lesspopulous states of Campeche and QuintanaRoo have been less affected.

Although the nectar and pollen plants thatnow predominate in the zona Maya appear tobe quite useful to Apis mellifera (171 pollenspecies used by the exotic honey bee havebeen recorded recently40,41,45), it is reasonableto expect that, for native bees, significantadjustments were needed in response to thechanges of flora resulting from humanactivities, both in historical times and morerecently. However, logging, even if it is notclear-cutting, reduces forest habitat by fellinglarge trees that contain Melipona nests, and atthe same time removes suitable, unoccupiednesting sites. If there are no new naturalcolonies accessible to the beekeeper, hivedcolonies lost to natural causes, such aspredators or hurricanes, cannot be replaced.At the same time, many beekeepers reportcolonies are dying from a lack of food. Theyobserve their colonies have less and lesshoney, most notably in the seasons ofreduced flowering. We also observedcolonies diminishing in size until no longerviable, often succumbing under attacks ofants, phorid flies, toads or Eira barbara(‘tayra’, a Neotropical weasel); this happenedmainly with colonies that were not checkedregularly.

Competition between Melipona beecheii andAfricanized honey bees

The extent to which the colonies of Meliponabeecheii are in decline is difficult to determine.Many factors are involved, such as reduced orchanging floral resources and whether theyare unable to forage such resources becauseof competition from Apis mellifera, which alsocompete for nesting sites.26,28. We see theneed for further investigations into these andother factors, such as effects of pesticides orchanges in annual rainfall patterns,36 andassociated drought and flowering. However,there are marked influences onmeliponiculture and bee foraging thatcoincide with the first arrival of Africanizedhoney bees in the late 1980s.

An understanding of competition betweenbees and its result cannot be resolved withshort-term field studies, but, rather, requirespopulation and community studies. Thequestion of honey bee impact on native beesin natural habitats has thus been the subjectof long-term research programmes, by DWRand collaborators, in French Guiana, Panama

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For the last 14 years the stingless bee keepers have been losing,on average, about 22 colonies each year. Continuing that trend, by the year 2008 there will be nodomesticated colonies left at all.

and in the present work.5,31,36 In the Yucatánpeninsula, there is a case to be made thatdomesticated Melipona beecheii, often kept inthe highly disturbed habitats that surroundMaya villages, but also surviving naturally inthe relatively intact forests of Quintana Roo,has undergone a population reduction due tocompetition with honey bees at flowers. Thedegree of competition for floral resourcesfrom Apis mellifera (now Africanized) dependson availability of resources and generalabundance of honey bees. After their arrival,18 years ago,40,43 Africanized honey beesappear now to saturate their habitats.28,29,36,45

Xunan-kab foragers most often visit theflowers of shrubs and trees,42,44 rather thanlow vegetation such as herbaceous plants,while Apis bees visit all of the above.40,41 At theend of the dry season there are few or noblossoming herbs.40,41,44 Competition is thenpotentially more intense for the blossoms ofshrubs and trees.44 Particularly interesting areobservations that Melipona appear toabandon resources where out-competed byother foraging bees, including exoticAfricanized honey bees.4,5,29 Meliponiculturistsin Tepich, Quintana Roo, reported lowerhoney production by their Melipona bees

when neighbours begin keeping Apis mellifera.8

At the same time, since the arrival ofAfricanized honey bees, the surroundinghabitat is now for the first time filled withhoney bees. This is in stark contrast to thescattered apiaries where European honeybees were once kept in Yucatán and wherethere was no widespread, naturalized, feralpopulation of Apis mellifera, typical forAfricanized bees in neotropical lowlands.32,33

Indigenous hunters of stingless bees in theAmazon basin also observed decreased honeyfrom their bees after colonization byAfricanized honey bees, but after 20 years‘production’ levels normalized, presumably aspopulation densities of Africanized honeybees decreased or the local bees adapted.26

Long-term decline in managed bee populations

The reasons for the rapid decline, especiallycolony mortality and decline, in the xunan-kab have not been examined in detail by thescientific or conservation communities, orvoiced by many scientific authors or studentsof Mayan culture and society. Economicreplacement by Apis mellifera is not an issuethat requires further discussion and isseemingly resolved.10,20,27 Here we focus on

biological and ecological factors and list theinsights gleaned from several publications inthe list of references cited here, in addition torecommendations that can be made as aresult of our ongoing studies in QuintanaRoo.

The keepers of xunan-kab report that theirbees are starving. Honey production andcolony size diminish until the bees can nolonger defend themselves from naturalenemies, or survive the normal or unusualdearth periods. The lack of food stores withinthe nest is often attributed to scarcity ofresources due to deforestation27 inconjunction with competition at floralresources from Africanized Apis mellifera.5,8,28

However, the loss of colonies may also beattributed to the overharvesting of honey,30 aswe have observed in most of the Mayancommunities where meliponiculture ispracticed. Beekeepers, in order to meetcommercial goals, offset the low honey storesin their hives by increased harvest intensity –clearly a counterproductive practice.

As already stated by other authors, there islittle economic incentive to continue keepingxunan-kab and solve the discouragingproblems it faces. Xunan-kab colonies now

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FIG. 2. A stingless bee keeper from the community of San Hermenegildo harvesting honey from his colony.

produce an average of two kg of honey eachyear,1 compared with 20 or 30 kg producedby Apis mellifera colonies in the region (andaverages of 130 kg by well-managedAfricanized honey bee colonies in heavilyforested French Guiana (B Gautier, D WRoubik, personal observation). Ourcollaborators in San Hermenegildo, QuintanaRoo (table 1), indicated that, up until the1980s, honey could be harvested fromMelipona beecheii as often as five times a year.The testimony from this Mayan village istelling. In the early 1990s, three years of poorhoney harvest were followed by completeharvest in 1993 of all honey stores of allcolonies (30 lbs.). One new colony wasbrought in from the forest in 1994, and thennearly all colonies died or were sold toresearch groups shortly thereafter. This villagehad 40 colonies when we began our work,and now it has none.

Although the honey of xunan-kab has beenanalysed and used for medicinal purposes bylocal people, this knowledge has not spreadfar from scientific circles and localrecognition, and more research is required inthis field.22 The specific problems for securinga market for stingless bee honey are many.First, the Codex Alimentarius allows only honeyfrom Apis mellifera to be marketed for humanconsumption in Europe.7 Second, hygienicstandards are not always applied to harvestingprocedures for stingless bee colonies, whichresults in lower quality and marketability ofthe honey. Third, there has been littleconcerted strategy for the marketing ofxunan-kab honey. This honey is sold in smallbottles (0.5 litre) in the local markets andwithin the community where themeliponiculturists live, where it derives noadded value. Finally, there remains thequestion of capacity for fulfilling a steadymarket demand. There are now fewknowledgeable beekeepers to continue thetradition of meliponiculture or to replace theolder beekeepers. The younger potentialbeekeepers are understandably profit-motivated. Many are familiar withmanagement of Apis mellifera and no longerappreciate the cultural or ecological value ofkeeping ‘old-fashioned’ traditions alive. Mayanvillages are becoming depopulated asinhabitants pursue opportunities in cities andtourism areas like Cancún and Playa delCarmen. The techniques and knowledgenecessary to maintain and propagate coloniesare not being passed on effectively, in eitheran informal or a formal process of technologytransfer, despite excellent published literatureon meliponiculture, including extensiveillustrations, although only recently has aguide been published in the Mayanlanguage.6,13,17,23,24,25,38,42 According to Mayan

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FIG. 3. The stingless bee Xunan kab, Melipona beecheii and its log hives kept by 120 Mayastingless bee keepers studied among 150 villages accurring in the Maya zone of QuintanaRoo, Mexico.

FIG. 4. Melipona beecheii colonies should be tight up to the internal structure of the‘palapa’ (a bee house made with wood and palms), to protect them against the strongwinds of hurricanes.

beekeepers that we have interviewed, thisbreak began about 50 years ago. A result isthat well-intentioned yet untrained personsor organizations, many familiar with Apismellifera only, obtain colonies of xunan-kab,but then lose them out of carelessness, orout of ignorance of the dangers faced bythese bees.

The Yucatán peninsula sits square in the pathof trade winds carrying low pressure systems.In June to November those winds maydevelop into hurricanes. Nearly every yearsome area of the peninsula suffers hurricaneor tropical storm damage. A survey ofmeliponiculturists in the state of Yucatán atthe end of 2002 revealed an almost completeloss of meliponaries affected by floodsbrought by hurricane Isidore.11,42 Coloniessurviving in other areas faced floral depletioncaused by hurricane winds – literally allflowers and buds were blown off the trees.Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, Roxan and Opal in1995, and Mitch in 1998, also severelyaffected both meliponiculture and apicultureof the peninsula. After a hurricane there isgenerally a drought that places the xunan-kabbees under food (nectar and pollen) stress,and limits their nest building activity (nestsare made and modified with soft mud), andtheir populations decrease.

Conclusions

Studies of traditional stingless bee keeping inYucatán conducted in the 1950s–1970s makeno mention of a decline in bee abundance orhoney production,46 but a decline was noted,without a causal analysis, at the end of the1980s.19 In the study presented here,approximately 20% of the stingless beekeepers in the zona Maya of the south-eastern Yucatán peninsula reported that over90% of their colonies of xunan-kab had

perished in the last 25 years. The losses wereprobably more drastic for the past halfcentury (table 1). The numbers of naturalcolonies has also dwindled. We have no datato rank the relative importance of exotichoney bee competition, habitat erosion,natural enemy attack, or waning managementand husbandry practices. All are implicated,however. Ironically, with the objective ofdeveloping meliponiculture and pollinator‘conservation’, non-governmental andgovernmental organizations and institutionshave purchased hives from traditional stinglessbee keepers. These have been placed withinexperienced individuals, which we believeconstitute yet another mortality factor. Wetherefore suggest that training andmanagement efforts are best directed atestablished stingless bee keepers able topropagate their colonies.

There are many benefits from preserving thexunan-kab tradition. Not only will animportant member of the ecologicalcommunity and pollinator of diverse plant andtree species2,27 be spared local extinction, buta public awareness of the importance of theforest and its biodiversity can be focused on anative species with a long and distinguishedlocal history.31 Xunan-kab are among the fewnative organisms that possess a widelyacknowledged status as a cultural, economic,ecological and conservation icon. It is thereby,as are other well-known bees, a de factoindicator of environmental health.18,35

To encourage the present efforts to return tosustainable agro-forestry endeavours andcottage industries that directly benefit thevillages of the zona Maya, we mostemphatically recommend the followingmeasures to forestall extinction of Meliponabeekeeping:

● Instructing beekeepers in the constructionand use of hives as well as techniques suchas feeding that will ensure the survival ofexisting colonies.

● Hive designs permitting easy opening forinspection and to facilitate artificial feeding.

● Conservative rather than aggressive honeyharvest from hives.

● Adopting regulations concerning limits onhoney bee (Apis mellifera) colonyestablishment, with the aim of reducinghoney bee concentrations in areas ofmeliponiculture activity.

● Legislation to protect forested areas fromcomplete destruction, especially nearvillages and cultivated areas.

● Encouraging use of existing protected areasand reserves as sites for development of

meliponiculture and for re-introduction ofcolonies to suitable habitats.

● Creation of projects at local level focusingon both reforestation (or forestpreservation) and meliponiculture.

● Researching product diversity andpotentials, specifically in the areas ofmedicines and cosmetics derived fromstingless bees.

● Researching marketing possibilities,especially in the tourism sector.

● Establishing standards for Melipona beecheiihoney, conditions for hygiene, and hivetypes.

● Introduction of high school, vocationalschool and university courses concerningmanagement of Melipona beecheii and otherstingless bees.

● Informing beekeepers about precautions tobe taken in the event of a hurricane.

● Creation of an institutionally funded centralbank of colonies and expertise, where newmeliponiculturists will be trained, givencolonies, and expected to propagate thosecolonies so that they can return to thebank the colonies that they haveborrowed.

● Communication with loggers requestingthat trees containing nests of Meliponabeecheii be spared or that nests discoveredbe given to appropriate organizations.

At this juncture, it would not be out of placeto incite the Mayan ritual of ‘u-hanli-cab’, forprotecting wild bees and the families thathave them.19

AcknowledgmentsWe thank El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (College of theSouthern Frontier) and the Smithsonian Institution (ScholarlyStudies grants to DWR) for financial and logistical support.We thank Dr Francisco Güemez-Ricalde and especially ScottForsythe for advice and valuable additions to the manuscript,an anonymous reviewer, and Margarito Tuz Novelo andGuillermina Herrera for their help.

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This is a ceremony performed by a Mayanpriest called “Men” (in the Mayanlanguage) twice a year. For this ritual, analtar is prepared, in which there is anoffering of drinks and meals, then the Menasks permission from the gods to harvestthe honey. During the ceremony there areprayers in the Mayan language and severalmusicians called “mayapax” play theirinstruments while the others are praying,the whole ceremony takes eight hours tocomplete.

Note: mayapax is a Mayan musician groupthat plays traditional music.

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www.ibra.org.uk June 2005 | Bee World | 41

ROGEL VILLANUEVA-G,1 DAVID W ROUBIK2

AND WILBERTO COLLI-UCÁN1

1El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Av.Centenario km 5.5, Apdo. Postal 424,Chetumal, Quintana Roo, C P 77900,Mexico

e.mail: rogel@ecosur-qroo.mx2Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute,Unit 0948, APO AA 34002-0948, USA

e.mail: roubikd@tivoli.si.edu