Flight Activities and Pollen Load of Three Species of Stingless Bees (Apidae: Melliponinae)

2nd International Conference on Biosciences

Atmowidi, T.^1 ; Prawasti, T.S.^1 ; Raffiudin, R.^1

Departement of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bogor Agricutural University, Bogor

16680, Indonesia^1

关键词: Acanthaceae;    Banana flowers;    Flight activity;    Heterotrigona itama;    Lepidotrogona terminata;    Pollen grains;    Stingless bees;    Tetragonula laeviceps;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/197/1/012025/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1755-1315/197/1/012025

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Stingless bees (Apidae: Melliponinae) are eusocial bees that have caste division within colony, namely queen, males, and workers. In the world, there are about 700 species of stingless bees and at least, 32 species have been described. In this study, we studied flight activities (returning and leaving of the nest) and pollen load of three species of stingless bees, i.e., Tetragonula laeviceps, Heterotrigona itama, and Lepidotrogona terminata. Morphologically, H. itama have a largest body size (average body length 5.52 mm), followed by L. terminata (average body length 4.99 mm), and T. laeviceps (average body length 3.86 mm). Peak activity of leaving and returning of the nest of H. itama occurred earlier (09.00-10.00) than in T. laeviceps and L. terminata (10:00-11:00). The highest pollen load occurred in L. terminata (270,950 pollen grains), followed by H. itama (69,802 pollen grains), and T. laeviceps (40,802 pollen grains). T. laeviceps carried dominantly pollen of banana flowers (Musa sapientum), L. terminata carried pollen of Acorus gramineus (Araceae), and H. itama carried pollen of Acanthaceae plant.