Nest entrance types of stingless bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae sensu lato) in a Tropical Dry Forest of mid-Western Brazil

Lima, Felipe Varussa de Oliveira; Silvestre, Rogério; Balestieri, José Benedito Perrella

doi:10.13102/sociobiology.v60i4.421-428

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…colour i.e the entrance colour was as that of the surrounding colour like black, grey, orange and black respectively. These observations were like the findings of Lima et al (2013) and Mythri et al (2018). The most preferred colour and shape of nest entrance is black and elliptical respectively.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

Nesting Etiquacy of Stingless Bee <i>Tetragonula “Iridipennis”</i> Species Group

Saaivignesh,

Manickavasagam,

2023

IJE

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In this study a total of 42 feral colonies of Tetragonula “iridipennis” were domesticated and observed for their nesting behaviour in feral nest and also in hive. Observation on the nesting behaviour revealed that, they generally inhabit old mud and stone walls, and the shape and colour of nest entrance were predominantly elliptical and black, respectively. The length and width of the entrance tube ranged between 9-13 and 3-9 mm, respectively on different substrata. The external and internal tunnel length ranged between 0-18 and 3-156 mm, respectively. The orientation of hive entrance was mainly towards northeast and east. Number of brood pots constructed/ batch and time required for a worker to construct the single brood pot were recorded.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

Nesting Etiquacy of Stingless Bee <i>Tetragonula “Iridipennis”</i> Species Group

Saaivignesh,

Manickavasagam,

2023

IJE

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“…As reported by Siqueira et al (2012) and Lima et al (2013), all colonies in this study were also nested in trees. Dissimilarly, Wille and Michener (1973), and Freitas (2001) observed this species nested in other locations, such as buildings, brick walls, chimney, and underground plumbing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Nest Architecture of Tetragona clavipes (Fabricius) (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini)

2016

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The aim of this study was to describe the nest architecture of Tetragona clavipes colonies, and to compare its features with other stingless bee species. The measurements were made on 10 colonies in terms of brood chamber, brood cells, royal cells, food pots, pillars between combs, and population. Brood chamber (= 3117.9 ± 1230.6 cm3) of spiral-shaped combs were all in the center of the nest. The values of equatorial diameter of brood chambers (= 14.33 ± 3.03 cm) can be useful to scale bee boxes. The height and width of food pots (= 3.42 ± 0.39 cm; = 2.21 ± 0.23 cm), and brood cells (= 6.37 ± 0.32 mm; = 3.73 ± 0.35 mm) were statistically different among colonies. The measurements of the internal nest structures of T. clavipes were similar to the few other reported studies of this species. T. clavipes nests presented only few differences from other stingless bee species. This species has large potential for honey production, which has not yet been explored and deserves attention in future studies.

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“…Te solutions developed by most of them may involve defecating outside the nests-honey bees Apis mellifera [41] or disposing their refuses outside the colonies-leafcutter ants Messor barbarous and Atta colombica [9,42] and several stingless bee species [12,[17][18][19]24]. Nevertheless, social insects like stingless bees inhabit nests that commonly have just a single entrance to the colony [21,27,43]. As a result, these structures appear to be built in a way that facilitates incoming and outgoing trafc of foraging bees [21,27].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Worker Flow at the Hive Entrance Predicts When Nest Cleaning is Intensified in Stingless Bees

Devkota,

dos Santos,

Ferreira

et al. 2024

Psyche: A Journal of Entomology

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Waste produced by living organisms is commonly disposed of as a prophylactic measure to avoid the spread of diseases and parasite infestation. For social insects, a proportion of workers is allocated to dispose the waste material outside the colony’s nest. However, most nests of social insects have a single entrance, where a high flow of individuals may create congestion, potentially compromising normal foraging activities and colony growth/health. Here, we investigated how two species of stingless bees (Tetragonisca fiebrigi and Plebeia droryana) deal with waste disposal and regular foraging activities, and the impacts of these activities on traffic flow at nest entrances. First, we compared the average traffic of bees assigned to waste removal activities. Following this, we investigated probabilities for waste removal as bee traffic increases. Then, we estimated a cutoff value to predict the likelihood that waste removal activities will be intensified over foraging trips. We found that, on average, the number of bees performing waste removal activities was lower than those undertaking foraging trips for both species. In addition, we observed that as overall bee traffic increases, the number of workers engaged in waste removal reduces or even ceases. Our models indicate that bee traffic of approximately 15 individuals/time is a cutoff score, below which, colonies invest in waste removal and above which, foraging trips are increased. It suggests that both species use the entrances of their colonies in an optimized way by adjusting which tasks should be intensified as the traffic of individuals increases.

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Nest entrance types of stingless bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae sensu lato) in a Tropical Dry Forest of mid-Western Brazil

Cited by 8 publications

References 29 publications

Nesting Etiquacy of Stingless Bee <i>Tetragonula “Iridipennis”</i> Species Group

Nesting Etiquacy of Stingless Bee <i>Tetragonula “Iridipennis”</i> Species Group

Nest Architecture of Tetragona clavipes (Fabricius) (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini)

The Worker Flow at the Hive Entrance Predicts When Nest Cleaning is Intensified in Stingless Bees

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