It is native to the southeastern coastal states of Brazil, where it is more commonly known as mandaçaia, which means "beautiful guard," as there is always a bee at the narrow entrance of the nest.

M. quadrifasciata constructs mud hives in the hollows of trees to create thin passages that only allow one bee to pass at a time.

Melipona quadrifasciata have dark black, rounded bodies with slightly curved antennae and translucent wings.

[5] Melipona that produce workers, males, and potential queens are indistinguishable and intermixed, making caste differentiation both environmentally and genetically determined.

Then, a number of worker bees starts to build a new nest in a tree cavity found to be well suited for this purpose, and store honey and pollen in there.

When the new nest is ready, a "princess bee" (mated gyne) join the workers, and if accepted it starts laying eggs and becomes the new queen.

As in other Melipona bees, after a while the abdomen of the new queen expands to 3 or more times the initial size (a phenomenon called physogastrism) and it becomes incapable of flying, never leaving the nest again.

Cells are built in a concentric pattern and are finished successively, not synchronously, so at any given time there is diversity in each growing stage.

[7] After the queen has deposited an egg, there is usually a slight delay in M. quadrifasciata workers before operculation, or closing of the cell, occurs.

[6] Potential queens, or gynes, are continually produced due to the genetic and trophic nature of caste differentiation.

In comparison with other species of bee, M. quadrifasciata was not as great at communicating the location of a foraging site, but this could be due to the abundant and easily encountered food sources in its habitat in the forests of Brazil.

[11] Similar to Melipona bicolor, M. quadrifasciata are mostly active outside of their nest in the morning, when humidity was high and light intensity and temperature were moderate.

[12] Melipona quadrifasciata is commonly used in agriculture in South America, but wild bees are feeling the effects of deforestation and pesticides.

[13] M. quadrifasciata is frequently harvested to be used as a greenhouse pollinator because it is stingless and can easily live in man-made hives.

[3] The nests of M. quadrifasciata and other stingless bees of the Meliponini tribe are commonly used to harvest honey in Central and South America.

M. quadrifasciata seeks nesting sites in hollows of trees located a few meters up from the ground, creating a rather narrow niche.

Only one species of tree in an area of the Brazilian cerrado is federally protected, Caryocar brasiliense, which is widely used by M. quadrifasciata for nesting.

However, recent studies have shown lethal and sublethal risks to local pollinators as unintended consequences of biopesticide usage.