Diversity and abundance of bees in the Chhattisgarh plains of Central India

Considering colour pan traps as an effective technique for monitoring bees, the present study was undertaken at the IGKV campus, Raipur in randomly selected plots with mixed vegetation. A total of 548 bees were collected from coloured pan traps belonging to 11 species and 6 genera. Our results indicate that most of the collected bees were from the family Halictidae (87.7%) with the most abundant genus Lasioglossum Curtis, 1833 (82.66%). It was observed that individual species displayed significant preferences for not only yellow pan traps, but also for white, blue, and neon green pan traps, respectively. White pan traps exhibited the highest rate of bee capture and species accumulation. White and yellow pan traps were moderately effective in capturing bees, while the red and grey pan traps were least effective. Similarly, the observed and extrapolated species richness was highest in blue and white pan traps followed by yellow and green pan traps, respectively. In the overall population of the bees recovered from the colour pan traps barely 4.92% of individuals were males. 14 species of bees were collected belonging to 8 genera through sweep net.