Plants and pollinating bees in Maringá, State of Paraná, Brazil

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 angustula, 3.93% Halictidae, 1.21% Megachilidae, 2.42% Anthophoridae, and 3.32% other Hymenoptera. Eleven plant species from nine families were observed. The four families most frequently visited by A. mellifera were Pontederiaceae (93.53%), Sterculiaceae and Polygoniaceae (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 Dombeya wallichii (32.63%), Ocimum americanum (15.5%) and Antigonon leptopus (15.2%). T. ansustula was the most frequent visitor of O. gratissimum flowers (60.87%).