Bumblebee
Bombus subterraneus
Status: Globally, bee populations have been suffering due to climate change and pesticides and destruction of native habitat and flora. People often hear of the plight of honeybees, but those are not endangered. The native wild populations of bees are the ones that are at risk. These wild native bees are vital to our agriculture as crop pollinators, which is supplemented but not replaced by cultivated honeybees.
Bees are mentioned in the oldest records. In 3500 B.c., Upper and Lower Egypt were ruled by kings whose respective hieroglyphics were of a reed, and a bee, and Egypt was described in the Bible as a land "flowing with milk and honey".
The name "Melissa" has its origins in ancient Greece, where the priestesses of Demeter, Artemis, and Persephone were called Melissae, meaning bees, and some of them were gifted with the art of foretelling. The art of beekeeping was venerated and throughout the Middle Ages. Bees were associated with the gods, magic, prophecy, and fairies.
The 16th century Italian Poet Ludovico Ariosto wrote an epic poem Orlando Furioso ("The Madness of Orlando"), a tale inhabited by fantastic creatures, monsters, and sorcerers against a backdrop of war and chivalric romance. In the poem is a good sorceress named Melissa, who is an acolyte of Merlin.
References:
Ludovico Ariosto, "Orlando Furioso" 1516.
Ott, J., & Wasson, R. G. (1983). cARVED "DISEMBODIED EYES" OF TEOTIHUAcAN. Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University, 29(4), 387-400. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41762856
Ransome, H.M. "The Sacred Bee". Houghton Mifflin, Boston and New York, 1937. https://books.google.com/books?id=S_rSHkGVDOkc&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false