It is considered to be the reared Melipona species with the largest distribution in the North and Northeast regions of Brazil, with records from Rio Grande do Norte down to Bahia.

[1] Its common name, Uruçu, comes from the Tupi "eiru su", which in this indigenous language means "big bee".

[1] M. scutellaris was one of the first bee species domesticated by Potiguara, Kiriri, Xucuru, Pataxó, Paiaku, Tupicuruba and Aymoré peoples.

M. scutellaris nests in cavities of tree trunks in the Atlantic rainforest and is widely distributed in the Northeast of Brazil, where it is commonly kept by regional and traditional beekeepers for honey, pollen and wax.

Ceruman is used in different ratios in storage pots, brood cells, entrance openings and tubes, and pillars.

The nests are surrounded and protected by a structure called batumen, a wall-like plate made of brittle ceruman, mud, and sometimes pieces of flowers and leaves.

[4] The species is now extremely rare in nature because of the deforestation of the Atlantic Rainforest for sugar cane plantations.

In the normal cells, the larvae ingest less food and are therefore of smaller size and labeled as "miniature" or "virgin" queens.

The other theory formulates that during development, female larvae have the decision of becoming a worker or a queen and therefore have the power of self-determination.

During the day, there is intense movement as bees bring pollen and nectar into the hive, and many workers remain alert as they guard the entrance to the colony to prevent theft of their food stores.

But at the end of afternoon, when the search for food slows down and the light diminishes, their vigilance wanes, and parasite queens take advantage of the inattentiveness.

Through this stealthy strategy, bees without a queen-right act as social parasites: they are able to take advantage of unrelated workers and benefit from their work.

[8] Foraging M. scutellaris motivate collecting bees to search for food at random by a "jostling run" where they bump into other workers.

[10] While workers can lay unfertilized eggs which become their sons, the haplodiploid sex-determination system increases the individual's fitness due to indirect selection.

Thus, beekeepers usually do not wear any special protection when working with the hives to inspect health, collect honey or duplicate the colony.

[13] M. scutellaris shows immediate discriminative responses towards nestmates compared to others that are not members of their colony.

The characteristics shown by chemical analyses suggest the presence of benzophenones as active compounds.

Therefore, geopropolis seems to be a promising natural product to be thoroughly studied in order to reveal new molecules with therapeutic properties.