Building Walkways: Observation on Nest Duplication of Stingless Bee Trigona iridipennins Smith (1854)

摘要

Beekeeping for honey and other bee products is an age old practice. Besides the popularhoneybees, and , stingless bees belonging to the tribe Meliponini,subfamily Apinae and family Apidae (Michener, 2007) are also reared for honey, having highmedicinal value. Stingless bees are exclusive to tropics and their size ranges from 2mm toslightly bigger than the popular honeybee (O'Toole & Raw, 1999). The practice ofkeeping stingless bees is called meliponiculture, and once it was an integral part of the cultureof indigenous people of South and Central America. It held a social and religious signif icancein the meso-American culture, mainly the ancient Mayans (Sommeijer, 1999). Stingless beeproducts such as honey, wax and propolis formed a small-scale economy in their livelihood aswell (Cortopassi-Laurino , 2006). Although least explored, meliponiculture is an age oldpractice in India also. Kani tribe in Western Ghats is the only reported reference, keepingstingless bees (Kumar , 2012). is thewidespread stingless beespecies inthe Indiansubcontinentand used formeliponiculture.