Assessment of comparative foraging activity in queen right and queen less colony of stingless bee, Tetragonula iridipennis Smith (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

Stingless bees are good pollinator in tropical and sub-tropical regions in India and known to pollinate various plants of economic importance and generally better used in planned pollination. Foraging performance by bees is a clear indicator of functioning and strength in colony. A various circumstances affect the normal foraging activity by bees. The queenless ness in the bee colony may be one of those reasons which alter the normal foraging activity in respect to foraging activity in a normal queen right bee colony. The present study was done with the aim to know how the absence of queen in a colony of stingless bee Tetragonula iridipennis Smith affects its foraging activity and to find out a comparative conclusion between foraging activity in a queen less and a queen right colony of T. iridipennis. The study revealed some important differences in foragging jobs in both types of colonies. Number of outgoing forager bees and resin collector bees were remain almost similar in queen right (61.149 and 2.893 bees per 5 min) and queenless colony(62.744 and 3.618 bees per 5 min), respectively, but pollen collector bees were found to be more active in queen less colony (20.560 bees per 5min) then in queen right colony (1.814 bees per 5 min), respectively, and the activity of cleaner bees and nectar collecting bees were more in queen right colony (5.367 and 61.39 bees per 5 min ) than in queen less colony (2.569 and 44.957 bees per 5 min), respectively.