Vol. 11, Issue 3 (2022)

Author(s):
Neeraj Kumar and GS Giri

Abstract:
The experiments on “Foraging Behaviour of Apis mellifera L. on Onion, Allium cepa L. bloom” were carried out during the year 2019 at ELP Apiary, TCA, Dholi. Objectives of this investigation were to study the, foraging behaviour of Apis mellifera on onion. The result on foraging behaviour of Apis mellifera revealed that they started visiting onion flowers in early morning and ceased their activity later in the evening. It remained active throughout the flowering period. The foraging rate of Apis mellifera was minimum in afternoon (11.6 flowers/min) and maximum during evening (24.3 flowers/min) and its foraging speed was maximum in afternoon (12.1 sec) and minimum in evening (6.5 sec) and there was inverse relation between foraging rate and speed. The heaviest pollen load was carried by the Apis mellifera in afternoon which indicated that more pollens were collected by Apis mellifera during afternoon from onion flowers. The result depicts that insect pollinators provide an important pollination service to the onion seed production. Among different insect pollinators, Apis mellifera was found most efficient pollinator of onion. Utilization of Apis mellifera bee colonies for seed production in onion will be highly remunerative as due to pollination, higher quantity of quality seed is produced.