Nesting biology and mating behavior of the solitary beeEpicharis nigrita(Apoidea: Centridini)

Nesting biology and immature stages of the oil-collecting bee Epicharis dejeanii (Apidae: Centridini)

“…Thus, when contrasted with the data presented by Hiller and Wittmann (1994), the number of the brood cells in each nest is very low. However, it is in conformity with the information known for the genus, since other studies showed, for the most part, one or two cells per nest excavated, except those found by Rozen (2016) for E. albofasciata and Martins et al (2019) for E. nigrita . Hiller and Wittmann (1994) also found brood cells in an irregular arrangement, ranging from horizontal to vertical and with different angulations, always close to each other.…”

“…In this study, the females were only observed returning with floral oil from the second day after nest establishment, therefore, the cell should be started only from this moment. Some females reused preexisting nests, and this behavior was also observed in E. nigrita by Martins et al (2019). These authors registered females that excavated their nests behaving very similarly to E. dejeanii .…”

“…The plasticity in the quantity of brood cells was already observed in Centris flavifrons (Fabricius) (Martins et al 2014) and in E. nigrita (Martins et al 2019), whose variation was between 1 and 12 and 1-5 cells per nest, respectively. The same authors discussed this plasticity when compared the data presented by other studies (see Vinson and Frankie 1988;Vinson et al 1996Vinson et al , 1997Gaglianone 2005;Rêgo et al 2006;Gonzalez et al 2007).…”

Nest Structure, Seasonality and Female Behavior of Epicharis (Anepicharis) dejeanii Lepeletier (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Centridini) in a Restinga Ecosystem, in Southern Brazil

“…The duration of activities was recorded with a chronometer. All these parameters have also been evaluated and described in different studies on Epicharis nesting biology (Gaglianone, 2005;Rocha-Filho et al, 2008;Martins et al, 2019).…”

“…Although Michener (1974) states that nest aggregations are sometimes very long-lived, few reports on nest aggregations of Epicharis (e.g. Gaglianone, 2005;Thiele & Inouye, 2007;Martins et al, 2019) monitored the aggregation for more than one or two years (Roubik & Michener, 1980;Hiller & Wittmann, 1994;Rocha-Filho et al, 2008;Werneck, 2012;Dec & Vivallo, 2019).…”