Morphometric studies on bumble bee, Bombus haemorrhoidalis Smith

Bumble bees are important pollinators because of their more working hours, buzz pollination of crops, short flight range and cold hardiness. These have three different castes (queen, drone and worker) with specific division of labour. Morphometric studies of Bombus haemorrhoidalis Smith were undertaken to know the differences for the identification of different castes. Total measurements recorded on twenty five characters were pertaining to tongue, mandible, antennae, fore wings, hind wings and legs of all castes. Data revealed that queen bee was bigger in size than both worker and drone. The average body length of queen, drone and worker was 26.40 ± 0.26, 18.13 ± 0.35 and 20.22 ± 0.22 mm respectively. The antennal length was found to be 7.02 ± 0.07, 12.04 ± 0.10 and 5.20 ± 0.09 mm in queen, drone and worker respectively. The flagellum had ten segments in all the castes of bumble bee. Queen had longer tongue (14. 08 ± 0.29 mm) than worker and drone. Queen consumed less food (2.0 g) (nectar + pollen) as compared to worker (2.09 g) and drone (2.03g). However pollen consumption was more in queen (0.76 g) than worker (0.54 g) and drone (0.24 g) respectively.