Role of Mining Bees (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae) in Pollination Ecology in India: A Review

Abstract

Mining bees (Andrenidae) are solitary, ground-nesting, smaller to medium in size, mostly found in the temperate agroforestry and arid ecosystems. These bee’s builds their nest in soil mounds and burrows in the soil that’s why they are called mining bees. These bees are very efficient pollinator in agricultural crops, fruits, fodder, pulses and other economically important plants. Most of the pollinators including mining bees enhance agricultural productivity at a large commercial level and appear in the beginning of the spring season. Due to their hairy body, scopae, smoky wings, with short and spikey tongue and chewing-lapping type of mouthparts, these adaptive structures are very favourable for the pollination. Our review is based on the importance of mining bees and their role in pollination in different agroforestry ecosystem in India. Besides, the literature pertaining to their pollination mechanism and different activities performed by different species of mining bees has been placed in a single roof for further studies. Family Andrenidae is represented by single genus (Andrena) from India and distributed under 54 species. Very elaborate and comprehensive information about mining bees from the region is presented in this paper.