Morphological, Nest Architecture and Colony Characteristics of Stingless Bees (Hymenoptera; Apidae; Meliponini) from Tasik Kenyir, Terengganu

2018 ◽  
pp. 111-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wahizatul Afzan Azmi ◽  
Roziah Ghazi ◽  
Iylia Syazwanie Nasharuddin
Sociobiology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yara Sbrolin Roldão-Sbordoni ◽  
Fábio Santos Nascimento ◽  
Sidnei Mateus

Estimate of stingless bee colonies including nest structures and quantitative brood and adult individuals are scarce. Here, we describe a new approach to estimate colonial parameters from nest structure, adults and brood. We used five colonies of Plebeia droryana (Friese, 1900) to evaluate colony size and weight of adult and brood. Nest architecture in P. droryana is similar to the species of the same genus but differ to the other stingless bees. In this species, we counted a total of 9 to 12 brood combs and a total of 19 to 25 food pots in the nests. The number of individuals in the colonies is considered small and our estimate was based on individual and group weight. Our study approach may contribute to further detailed studies of the species nest and considering the stingless bees to the pollination of agricultural crops and native flora of tropical regions, it is important to add information about the biology of P. droryana.


2015 ◽  
Vol 77 (33) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Farisya Mohd Saufi ◽  
Kumara Thevan

Meliponiculture is the activity of stingless bee keeping, where the colony of stingless bees extracted from wild for the purpose of domestication. The study of stingless bee nest architecture of selected species brings benefit to this newly booming industry. Geniotrigona thoracica, is one of the largest stingless bee in Malaysia and has potential used in meliponiculture. The objectives of this study are to determine nest structure and growth, foraging activity and morphometry of worker bee. Colonies (n=3) of G. thoracica were used to study the nest structure and growth, foraging activity and morphometry of worker bee. Sampling was done for a period of one year from July 2013 until June 2014 for nest growth and foraging frequency. For morphometry study, worker bees were sampled from each nest Result showed external nest structure formed in brown mount shape and the internal nest formed by three components, horizontal brood combs that surround with honey pots and pollen pots. The nest dynamics of G. thoracica changes according to the season. The peak time foraging frequency of G. thoracica was in between 1000 hrs until 1200 hrs.  From morphometry study of worker bee, result for flight cost and aggressive cost were 8.48 ± 0.440 and 0.06 ± 0.004 respectively.


2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 2317-2331 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. FRANCK ◽  
E. CAMERON ◽  
G. GOOD ◽  
J.-Y. RASPLUS ◽  
B. P. OLDROYD

2019 ◽  
Vol 158 (4) ◽  
pp. 213-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natália M. Travenzoli ◽  
Bárbara A. Lima ◽  
Danon C. Cardoso ◽  
Jorge A. Dergam ◽  
Tânia M. Fernandes-Salomão ◽  
...  

Stingless bees of the genus Melipona are subdivided into 4 subgenera called Eomelipona, Melikerria, Melipona sensu stricto, and Michmelia according to species morphology. Cytogenetically, the species of the genus Melipona show variation in the amount and distribution of heterochromatin along their chromosomes and can be separated into 2 groups: the first with low content of heterochromatin and the second with high content of heterochromatin. These heterochromatin patterns and the number of chromosomes are characteristics exclusive to Melipona karyotypes that distinguish them from the other genera of the Meliponini. To better understand the karyotype organization in Melipona and the relationship among the subgenera, we mapped repetitive sequences and analyzed previously reported cytogenetic data with the aim to identify cytogenetic markers to be used for investigating the phylogenetic relationships and chromosome evolution in the genus. In general, Melipona species have 2n = 18 chromosomes, and the species of each subgenus share the same characteristics in relation to heterochromatin regions, DAPI/CMA3 fluorophores, and the number and distribution of 18S rDNA sites. Microsatellites were observed only in euchromatin regions, whereas the (TTAGG)6 repeats were found at telomeric sites in both groups. Our data indicate that in addition to the chromosome number, the karyotypes in Melipona could be separated into 2 groups that are characterized by conserved cytogenetic features and patterns that generally are shared by species within each subgenus, which may reflect evolutionary constraints. Our results agree with the morphological separation of the Melipona into 4 subgenera, suggesting that they must be independent evolutionary lineages.


Heliyon ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. e06649
Author(s):  
N.A. Ramli ◽  
N. Ali ◽  
S. Hamzah ◽  
N.I. Yatim

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robbie I’Anson Price ◽  
Francisca Segers ◽  
Amelia Berger ◽  
Fabio S Nascimento ◽  
Christoph Grüter

Abstract Social information is widely used in the animal kingdom and can be highly adaptive. In social insects, foragers can use social information to find food, avoid danger or choose a new nest site. Copying others allows individuals to obtain information without having to sample the environment. When foragers communicate information they will often only advertise high quality food sources, thereby filtering out less adaptive information. Stingless bees, a large pantropical group of highly eusocial bees, face intense inter- and intra-specific competition for limited resources, yet display disparate foraging strategies. Within the same environment there are species that communicate the location of food resources to nest-mates and species that do not. Our current understanding of why some species communicate foraging sites while others do not is limited. Studying freely foraging colonies of several co-existing stingless bee species in Brazil, we investigated if recruitment to specific food locations is linked to (1) the sugar content of forage, (2) the duration of foraging trips and (3) the variation in activity of a colony from one day to another and the variation in activity in a species over a day. We found that, contrary to our expectations, species with recruitment communication did not return with higher quality forage than species that do not recruit nestmates. Furthermore, foragers from recruiting species did not have shorter foraging trip durations than those from weakly-recruiting species. Given the intense inter- and intraspecific competition for resources in these environments, it may be that recruiting species favour food resources that can be monopolised by the colony rather than food sources that offer high-quality rewards.


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