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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Peter Loring Borst <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:42:08 +0000
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> In contrast to bee-flower coevolution or implied mutualism (Barth 1985), migratory colonies of Apis dorsata can be megaparasites of the floral community, but evidently not so often in the old forest at LHNP. When giant honeybees take floral food from male flowers but do not visit female flowers, as they seem to do in bamboos, some palms, and rattans (Korthalsia, Calamus, Arenga)—which was revealed by pollen analysis from multiple bees nests—as major pollen sources (see Table 8.2; Kiew 1993, 1997), then floral visitation is not the same as pollination.
> 
> Apis dorsata and A. cerana often visit the male flowers of large palm inflorescences, while shunning the female flowers, and this automatically makes them floral parasites or thieves (Kiew 1993). The same observation was made both for African A. mellifera and for Meliponini in Neotropical forests. A general predilection of Apis for large bunches of male flowers, including wind-pollinated Fagaceae, Euphorbiaceae (Macaranga), and many grasses, for example wind-pollinated Zea mays, generally signifies that pollen is being removed but often little or no pollination service is provided. 

Honeybees in Borneo
David W. Roubik
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