Abelhas-sem-ferrão amazônicas defendem meliponários contra saques de outras abelhas

Abstract

Among eusocial bees, two genera evolved a cleptobiotic life strategy, stealing food resources from other bee nest instead of collecting it from flowers. Under natural conditions there is a gradient of strategies against robbing, from more susceptible to highly resistant species. In this work, we describe one attack of the robber bee Lestrimelitta rufipes to a nest of Scaptotrigona sp. in the Amazon Rain Forest (Amazonas, Brazil). The attacked nest was introduced in a beekeeping area with bees already known to be resistant to cleptobiosis. The resident bees (Duckeola ghilianii and Melipona fulva) counter-attacked the robber bees and successfully protect the Scaptotrigona sp. nest. The presence of the defensive behaviour in unrelated genera suggests it evolved many times in social bees. Based on the protective behaviour described here, we suggest that in order to reduce the damage caused by Lestrimelitta attacks in Amazonian beekeeping, a combination of defensive and non-resistant bees should be considered.