Biology of bamboo nesting stingless bees of southwest China

Abstract

More than 550 stingless bee species have been found in the tropical and subtropical areas across the world. Different stingless bee species inhabit various types of nests, such as tree hollows, walls, lime stone crevices, or even co-nest with other live creatures such as ants and termites underground. These cavity-nesting habits make it difficult to estimate the colony size of the stingless bees. Stingless bee species native to southwest China are sympatric with many species of bamboo, and the straight shape of bamboo provides an easier method to estimate the size of the colony and the volume preference of stingless bee in selecting trap nests. Here, we reported bamboo nest characteristics measurement with its height, diameter, entrance size, a calculation its inner volume capacity to determine the stingless bee nesting preference in bamboo. The results showed that two stingless bee species, Lepidotrigona flavibasis and Tetragonula gressitti, all nest in the bamboo; the size of entrance that was preferred by T. gressitti was around 10.71 ± 2.38 cm2, compared with the preference by L. flavibasis for small nest entrance area around 1.33 ± 0.25 cm2. Accordingly, the volume of the internode of the bamboo was 2272.37 ± 126.7 mL compared to 4493.35 ± 466.91 mL chosen by L. flavibasis and T. gressitti, respectively. Interestingly, both stingless bee species preferred to living bamboo rather than the dead bamboo as a nesting site. This study indicates that cheap and easily accessible bamboo could be used as trap nests for stingless bees, and the preference volumes of different species suggest what the various colony sizes of stingless bee swarms might be. Selecting a proper species-specific characteristics of bamboo internode as trap nest benefits us in researching, conserving, and keeping for stingless bees.