SATIPO, Peru—Dry leaves rustled beneath the hem of her terracotta-tinted dress as Micaela Huaman Fernandez knelt on the forest floor. Leaning in toward the base of a moss-covered palo santo tree, she pointed to a flicker of tiny golden insects fluttering in and out of view.

“Shinkenka,” she murmured softly, watching them vanish through a small waxen tunnel fused to the tree trunk—a narrow passageway to their hidden nest.

It was the name her Asháninka ancestors had given the insects long ago—a stingless bee species revered as sacred by the Indigenous people for the distinctive honey it produces. For generations, it had been offered as a cure for wounds, cataracts, fevers, even infertility. In Spanish, Huaman added, some beekeepers like herself also call them angelitas —or “little angels.”

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