The aim of this experiment was to study the biodiversity of pollinators in Italian pumpkin crop in 2013, 2014 and 2015, in relation to the visiting insects in male and female flowers, the type of collection and their forage behavior, in Ribeirão Preto, SP. The opening and closing of flowers and the attractiveness of the male flowers to the female flowers were evaluated. The frequency and type of collection of flower visitors were obtained by counting in the first 10 minutes of each hour with three replicates in each year. Was observed that the flowers open at 6:00 a.m. and closed about 1:00 p.m. The female flowers begin to close at 12 noon and soon after the male ones close also, reducing the activity of the pollinators. Several bee species collect nectar and pollen from pumpkin flowers: Africanized honey bees Apis mellifera, stingless bees Trigona spinipes, native bees Exomalopsis analis, Peponapis fervens and species of the family Halictidae. The most frequent insect in the flowers was Africanized honey bee (79.25%) followed by the stingless bee Trigona spinipes (20.75%). The honey bee visited the flowers from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and preferred to collect nectar in male flowers (61.0%) when compared to pollen in male flowers (22.3%) and nectar in female flowers (16.7%). Due to forage behavior all bees observed were considered as pollinators of the Italian pumpkin crop.
Bees need pollen for their maintenance and development. Maize tassels (Zea mays L.) produce large amounts of pollen, which are visited by several bee species. This experiment was conducted in Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil, in 2013 with the objective to evaluate the factors affecting the foraging behavior of bees in different maize hybrids. For this purpose, we used the experimental design by randomized blocks. Seven treatments were repeated four times in experimental plots of 4.2 (6 lines) x 6.0 m (25.2 m 2 ), in which borders of 0.70 m were kept clean in two plantings (January and April 2013). The genotypes used were (1) conventional maize 2B587 ® (control); (2) transgenic maize Powercore ® ; (3) YieldGard VT PRO ® ); (4) Viptera ® ; (5) Viptera 3 ® ; (6) Herculex ® and ( 7) Optimum Intrasect ® . The frequency of visitations of bees to collect pollen was obtained by counting in the first five minutes each time, from 7:00 am to 11:00 am, with four and five replications (different days) in each hybrid in two plantings, respectively. The crude protein and weight of pollen and the tassels of different maize hybrids were evaluated. We have found the prevalence of Africanized honey bees (Apis mellifera) visiting the maize tassels preferably between 7:00 am and 9:00 am exclusively for pollen collection. The most visited hybrids by Africanized honey bees were those with the highest amount of pollen in the collected samples.
The objectives were to evaluate the biodiversity of bees, forage behavior and their effect on fruit production in the gherkin crop (Cucumis anguria L.) in the campus of the University Center Moura Lacerda in two years. The frequency and type of collection of the insects in the flowers was observed by counting from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., in the first 10 minutes of each time, for three distinct days in each year. The percentage of fruiting was quantified in 25 female flowers covered with nylon compared to the 25 female flowers uncovered in the two years. The flowers were visited by the Africanized honey bees Apis mellifera and the native bees Plebeia sp., Exomalopsis sp. and Melissodes sp., and the Africanized honey bees presented higher frequency and constancy with a higher number of visits in the male flowers compared to the female ones and these visits occurred between 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Without the visitation of the bees there was no fruit production, and both the Africanized honey bee and the native ones when collecting nectar and pollen, visited both female and male flowers, carrying pollen in their body, being considered important pollinators of this culture.
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