Abstract
The plants providing nectar resources to Tetragonisca angustula were identified through melissopalynological analysis of 76 honey samples from eight states. A total of 306 pollen types belonging to 49 families were identified. According to pollen frequency classes 40 monofloral, 13 bifloral, and 23 multifloral honeys were found. Representative plants of the coffee agroecosystem (including native plants and Coffea arabica) were the main nectar sources for monofloral and bifloral honey. These results may improve meliponiculture performance in Colombia because breeders of this stingless bee can implement management practices aimed at botanical differentiation of honey.
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Acknowledgments
We thank all the stingless bee-keepers for allowing study in their meliponaries. We thank the team of the Bee Research Laboratory (LABUN) for collaboration. We also thank Scott Bridges for editorial help and Jorge Velez for assistance in identifying plants. We thank Patricia Vit, David Roubik for editorial observations, Monika Barth, and Jorge Enrique Moreno Patiño for constructive comments. We thank Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Departamento de Biología) for funding the study. We also thank the laboratory of Palynology and Paleoecology of the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales for allowing us to consult the pollen collection.
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Obregón, D., Rodríguez-C, Á., Chamorro, F.J., Nates-Parra, G. (2013). Botanical Origin of Pot-Honey from Tetragonisca angustula Latreille in Colombia. In: Vit, P., Pedro, S., Roubik, D. (eds) Pot-Honey. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4960-7_23
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