Landscape foraging ecology of giant honey bees, Apis dorsata, in an Indian forest

I conducted a study of the spatio-temporal dynamics and pollen foraging of giant honey bees, Apis dorsata, in Karnataka, India. Through observations of the honey bee dance language at nesting aggregations I inferred that bees forage at maximum distances of 9.5 km from the nest, exceeding area of 250 km2, and that 95% of flights occur at distances within 2.7 km from the nest. They did not exhibit predictable shifts of flight range according to the type of forest they were nesting in, year in which data were collected, or week in the flowering season. Instead, flight range variation was due to week* site differences, and week* colony (site) differences. This suggests that colonies adjust flight distance according to local fluctuations in resources, and shift foraging locations such that they do not overlap with neighboring colonies.; I examined feces of colonies over the course of two flowering seasons to discover which plants bees utilize as pollen resources, and to examine whether they exhibit food plant preferences. I used data on the relative frequency of the major tree species to quantify whether bees used pollens in proportion to their occurrence in the environment. Across several sites and weeks, bees overutilized pollen of Catunaregam spinosa (Rubiaceae) relative to its abundance in the forest, overused the relatively rare genus Schleichera (Sapindaceae), and underused the dominant genus Terminalia (Combretaceae). When phenological variation in plants was taken into account, bees exhibited a preference for the same taxa. These results suggest that Schleichera and Catunaregam may be important for maintaining the population of A. dorsata , which then provides pollination to many other plants.; I used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to examine how spatio-temporal heterogeneity in food plants influences bees' flight range. Results indicate that the flight range of A. dorsata is negatively correlated with Terminalia flowering availability, resulting in apparent tracking of this nectar resource. This research demonstrates the power of using GIS methods alongside field observations to understand spatio-temporal variation in ecological systems, and sheds new light on the ecology of a crucial pollinator, information which will be useful for conservation corridor planning in Asia.