Distribution And Nest Architecture Of Dammer Bees

Stingless honeybees (Meliponini, Apidae:Hymenoptera) are small to medium sized perennial eusocial insects(Nagamitsu et al., 1998) with a vestigial sting(Karunaratne and Edirisinghe, 2007) commonly distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of the world (Leonhardt et al., 2007). A study was conducted regarding nesting habits and nest structure of feral colonies and rearing practices of the stingless bee, Trigona iridipennis Smith at Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Chidambaram. The relative abundance, density and frequency of nests varied significantly at different nesting sites.