This study demonstrates that stingless bees (Apidae, Hymenoptera) amount to approximately 70% of all bees foraging on flowers in the Brazilian Tropical Atlantic Rainforest. They also are the unique bee group concentrated ...

Only a few decades after 1492, when Christopher Columbus arrived on a Caribbean island and Pedro Alvares Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal in 1500, a German mercenary gave the first description of stingless bees in 1557. ...

The stingless bee Scaptotrigona postica is an important pollinator of native and cultivated plants in Brazil. Among the factors affecting the survival of these insects is the indiscriminate use of insecticides, including ...

We investigated hygienic behavior in 10 colonies of Plebeia remota, using the pin-killed method. After 24 h the bees had removed a mean of 69.6% of the dead brood. After 48 h, the bees had removed a mean of 96.4% of the ...

We investigated the success of two stingless bee species in pollinating strawberries in greenhouses. Three greenhouses and one open field area were used; one greenhouse had only strawberry plants (control), another (G1) ...

In stingless bees, the cell provisioning and oviposition process consists of several integrated behavioral sequences and several stereotyped queen-worker interactions. This study aims to demonstrate that chemical signals ...

In Meliponini bees, pollen is stored inside the hive. We compared the nutritional value and apparent digestibility of bee-collected and bee-stored pollen of Scaptotrigona postica. The results showed no differences in ...

The ultrastructure of digestive cells of newly emerged, nurse and forager worker bees is described. Newly emerged bees have the endoplasmic reticulum characteristically in whorls and stacks as well as in parallel arrays ...

The ultrastructure of digestive cells of newly emerged, nurse and forager worker bees is described. Newly emerged bees have the endoplasmic reticulum characteristically in whorls and stacks as well as in parallel arrays ...