The contact toxicity of insecticides used in the cashew ecosystem viz., thiamethoxam, carbosulfan, buprofezin, lambdacyhalothrin, imidacloprid, chlorpyriphos and profenophos were evaluated against Indian bee Apis cerana indica F., and stingless bee Tetragonula iridipennis S. under laboratory conditions. It was observed that buprofezin caused the least mortality of 21.48 and 19.91% with A. cerana indica and T. iridipennis, respectively; chlorpyriphos led to maximum mortality of 100% to with both the bees, and thus highly toxic at 24 hours after treatment (HAT). Imidacloprid led to >70% mortality with both the bee species at 24 HAT, while it varied from 40 to 60% the bees with thiamethoxam, carbosulfan and lambda cyhalothrin at 24 HAT.

This study on pollinator diversity and abundance of frequent floral visitors was conducted during on coriander during rabi 2019-20 in Lalapuram village of Kallikudi block, Madurai district. Coriander flowers were observed to be visited by 25 pollinators. Among the visitors, four species were hymenopterans belonging to Apis (16%) and six from Non- Apis spp. (24%) Four belonged to Lepidoptera and Diptera (16%), three from Hemiptera and Coleoptera (12%) and one from Araneae (4%). Among all these, Apis florea was the most dominant one among Apis spp. followed by Apis cerana indica and Tetragonula iridipennis. The foraging activity and Shannon- Weiner’s diversity index (2.78) was observed to be maximum during 1000- 1200 hrs.