Abstract

RODRIGUEZ-PARILLI, Severiano  and  VELASQUEZ, Mercedes. Activity places of bees (Hymenoptera:Apoidea) in tropical dry forest of Guárico State, Venezuela. Zootecnia Trop. [online]. 2011, vol.29, n.4, pp.421-433. ISSN 0798-7269.

The bees use diverse materials from the nature to support their metabolism, nests construction and/or defense. To know these sources is very important for the management of the apiculture and meliponiculture in order to guarantee the pollination of cultivated and not cultivated plants. The purpose of this study was to determine the bees’ activity places in dry tropical forest of Guárico State in Venezuela. The sampling began in August 2007 and fi nished in July, 2008, with 8 hours effort/month. Bees were captured in 72 places through a transect of 500 m long. Results show that 65% of plants encountered represent species of plants distributed in 30 families. In Fabaceae (15 sp.), Asteraceae (6 sp.), Rubiaceae (4 sp.) and Malvaceae (4 sp.) recording the major numbers of species visited by bees, which represent 44,61 % of the botanical species determined in the study and which received the visit of 35,58 % of the bees. Apinae was the group more polilectic including 28 vegetable families visited, followed by Xylocopinae and Halictinae with 21 and 20 families respectively. The most important vegetable species for the bees, considering a frequency of visiting bigger than 100 individuals, were Amaranthus spinosus, Vernonia brasiliana, Hyptis sp. and those with higher diversity of visiting, including more than 13 species were V. brasiliana, Sida sp., Casearia sp., Wedelia caracasana

Keywords : bees; dry tropical forest; Apoidea.

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