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- Title
DIVERSITY OF STINGLESS BEES, Tetragonula sp. (HYMENOPTERA: APIDAE) IN TAMIL NADU, INDIA.
- Authors
SABATINA, Paulraj; SRINIVASAN, Madapuji Rajagopalan; MURUGAN, Marimuthu; SAMINATHAN, Vangili Ramasamy
- Abstract
The present study was conducted to find the diversity of stingless bees (Tetragonula sp.) in Coimbatore, Madurai, Dindigul, and Tiruchirappalli districts in Tamil Nadu, India. Adult worker bees were collected from feral stingless bee colonies from 16 locations, four from each district. The collected stingless bees were preserved in 70% alcohol (ethanol) and examined under a Leica stereozoom microscope. Seventeen morphometric key characteristics were measured to know the diversity of stingless bees. The results revealed that two species of stingless bees, Tetragonula iridipennis and T. laeviceps were prevalent in the four selected districts of Tamil Nadu. Four vital morphometric characteristics of the worker bees namely the head width, the forewing length, the hind tibial length, and the whole body length helped to distinguish the two Tetragonula species. Among all the locations, the bees collected from L1-Insectary, TNAU (Coimbatore) had much higher values of the above four morphometric characters (1.67mm ± 0.04, 3.69mm ± 0.02, 1.53mm ± 0.01 and 3.98mm ± 0.14 respectively) and were identified to be T. laeviceps based on these key morphometric characters. The bees from the rest of the 15 locations which had the morphometric values 1.59 to 1.61 mm, 3.20 to 3.41mm, 1.34 to 1.43mm and 3.51 to 3.65mm respectively were categorized as T. iridipennis. As a result, T. iridipennis was the most commonly prevalent stingless bee species in Coimbatore, Madurai, Dindigul and Trichy districts while T. laeviceps was found only to be present in Coimbatore.
- Subjects
COIMBATORE (India); TAMIL Nadu (India); STINGLESS bees; APIDAE; HYMENOPTERA; BEE colonies; BEES; ETHANOL
- Publication
Uludag Bee Journal, 2023, Vol 23, Issue 2, p252
- ISSN
1303-0248
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.31467/uluaricilik.1372973