Plants and pollinating bees in Maringá, State of Paraná, Brazil.
Toledo V. de A. A. de, Fritzen A. E. de T., Neves C. A., Ruvolo-Takasusuki M. C. C., Sofia S. H., Terada Y.
Author Affiliation: Department of Animal Science, Universidade Estadual de Maringá - UEM, Avenida Colombo, 5790, 87020-900, Maringá, PR, Brazil.
Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology 46 : 705-710
Abstract : The present study was carried out to survey the bees as visitors to melliferous flora in the region of Maringá, state of Paraná, Brazil. A total of 331 insects were captured, and the fauna comprised 39.88% Trigona spinipes, 38.37% Apis mellifera, 8.16% Tetragonisca [Trigona] angustula, 3.93% Halictidae, 1.21% Megachilidae, 2.42% Anthophoridae, and 3.32% other Hymenoptera. Eleven plant species (Mangifera indica, Allamanda sp., Tabebuia serratifolia, Leonurus sibiricus, Ocimum americanum, O. gratissimum, Eichhornia crassipes, Antigonon leptopus, Dombeya wallichii, Cosmos bipinnatus and Foeniculum vulgare) from 9 families were observed. The 4 families most frequently visited by Apis mellifera were Pontederiaceae (93.53%), Sterculiaceae and Polygonaceae (47.22%), Apocynaceae and Apiaceae (42.86%). The families most visited by T. spinipes were Lamiaceae (64.70%), Apocynaceae (57.14%), Sterculiaceae (51.85%) and Anacardiaceae (48.39%), and the families most visited by T. angustula were (28.57%), Asteraceae (22.22%) and Labiatae (16.47%). Three species predominated in number of bee visits D. wallichii (32.63%), O. americanum (15.5%) and Antigonon leptopus (15.2%). T. angustula was the most frequent visitor of O. gratissimum flowers (60.87%).