Author(s):

MP Bharath, C Chinniah, J Jayaraj, K Suresh, TN Balamohan and S Vellaikumar

Abstract: The climate variables have influence on the foraging performance of stingless bees. Studies were conducted at Insectary of Department of Agricultural Entomology, Agricultural College and Research Institute, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India from March to May of 2018, to study the impact of abiotic factors viz., maximum temperature, minimum temperature, relative humidity, rainfall and wind speed on the seasonal and diurnal variations in foraging activity of stingless bee during summer. The activity of worker bees was recorded maximum (57.3 numbers of incoming bees/5 min) during the morning hours between 8.00 am to 9.00 pm. Overall foraging activity was gradually decreased in the evening hours with minimum of 14.74 bees per five minutes. In summer from 9th to 14th standard week the foraging activity of stingless bee showed higher total activity (115.04 to 130.5 bees/5 min) with the pollen gatherers peak activity of 13.33 bees per five minutes during 9th standard week. The mean climatic factors, minimum temperature of 23.27 °C, maximum temperature of 36.01 °C, relative humidity of 61.83%, rainfall of 12.36 mm and wind velocity of 1.15 kmph. Minimum temperature had negatively affected foraging bee activity with correlation coefficient of r = -0.82, r = -0.69 and r = -0.50 for outgoing bees, incoming bees and pollen collectors respectively. Contrary to this, the relative humidity showed positive impact on the frequency of worker bees going out of hive (r = 0.14) and those incoming bees (r = 0.03) but negatively affected the pollen collectors (r = - 0.06).

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