Indian Journal of Entomology

An experiment on the insect pollinators was conducted with four summer squash hybrids viz., Parikrama, Chandra, Chamatkar and Gold Queen at the Research Farm of the Department of Entomology, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar during February-March 2014. A total of 34 species belonging to seven insect orders were found visiting their flowers viz., 10 hymenopterans, 8 lepidopterans, 4 dipterans, 5 coleopterans, 2 orthopterans, 2 odonata and 3 hemipterans. Among these, A. dorsata, A. mellifera, A. cerana and A. florea were the most frequent. The abundance (bees/m²/5 minutes) of A. mellifera was highest (2.21) followed by A. cerana (1.16), A. dorsata (1.07) and A. florea (0.62). Irrespective of species, the population was maximum (1.45 bees/m²/5 minutes) at 1000–1200 h of the day. The % abundance of species revealed that the total population of A. mellifera was the highest (43.71%) followed by A. cerana (22.87%), A. dorsata (21.19%) and A. florea (12.23%).