FORAGING FLORA OF STINGLESS BEES, TETRAGONULA SPP. IN BAGALKOT, KARNATAKA, INDIA.

Stingless bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponinae) are eusocial insects, play an important role as pollinators of many flowering plants. This study was aimed to know the flowering plants foraged by stingless bees through visual observations and pollen analysis. The roving survey was conducted at the College of Horticulture, Udyanagiri and Haveli Campus, Bagalkot, Karnataka and observed for the stingless bees on flowering plants from September 2019 to March 2020 during peak foraging time. Recorded a total of 30 plant species belonging to 20 different families of which most preferred families included Apiaceae, Fabaceae, Asteraceae, Amaryllidaceae, Anacardiaceae and Euphorbiaceae. The pollen analysis or Melissopalynology was performed by using the standard method of acetolysis. A total of 11 pollen loads were collected from corbicula of stingless bees from January to March 2020 and identified 9 plant species belonging to 8 different families of which, family Arecaceae and Mangifera indica L. were most occurred pollen types among all the pollen load collected samples. These results suggest that the studied areas can provide food sources for stingless bees where it is important for maintaining populations of them in meliponiculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]