Honey bees play an important role in crop pollination of bitter gourd flowers. An experiment was conducted at Coimbatore District to observe the foraging activity and pollination efficiency of Indian bee (A. cerana indica) in Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.). The foraging activity and number of foragers/ flower/ min was recorded in male and female bitter gourd flower. Bitter gourd fruit set and yield was assessed under three conditions pollinator exclusion, bee pollination and open pollination.No. of foragers/ flower/ minute (abundance of pollinators) and floral handling time in seconds (foraging rate) of Indian bees recorded on male flower (0.88 bees) and (6.52 sec) was higher than in female flower (0.57 bees) and (3.61 sec) respectively. The peak foraging activity of A. cerana indica noticed between 08:00-10:00 hours with 1.2 foragers/ 5 mins. Pollination efficiency index of Indian bee was 747035.5. Foraging activity at the hive entrance was maximum at 08:00 to 10:00 hours. Colony growth parameter of A. cerana indica was increased 67.85% in respect of the sealed honey area and 15.07% in respect of the adult population. The results of pollination studies show, the number of fruits/plant (17.4 fruits) and fruit yield per hectare (41.13 t/ha) was higher in managed bee pollinated plot than to open pollination condition (16.2 fruits) and (37.25 t/ha) and no fruit set was recorded in pollination exclusion condition.

In an experiment conducted to evaluate the efficacy of four botanical extracts (Solvent extraction) viz., Sweet flag (Acorus calamus), Turmeric (Curcuma longa), Sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum), Medicinal Coleus (Coleus forskohlii) in comparison with three Essential oils (Steam distillation) viz., Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus), Peppermint (Mentha piperita) and Lemongrass (Cymbopogan citratus) against the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, it was observed that Sweet basil, O. basilicum at 5% was found to be effective against G. mellonella with a maximum of 89.29% larval mortality followed by Sweet flag (A. calamus) with 65.71% mortality. Medicinal coleus, (C. forskohlii) with 56.66% mortality and Turmeric (C. longa) with 45.47% mortality in the descending order of efficacy. Among essential oils tried, Peppermint oil (M. piperita) has resulted in 80.24% larval mortality, followed by Eucalyptus oil (E. globulus) with 69.05% mortality and Lemongrass oil, C. citratus (50.48%). The botanical treatment with Sweet basil, O. basilicum (21.81%) resulted in minimum comb weight loss by G. mellonella followed by Sweet flag, A. calamus (29.04%). Among the essential oil, Peppermint oil, M. piperita (24.56%) afforded less comb weight loss, indicating the effectiveness of treatment in controlling the larval damage.