| Abstrak/Abstract |
Kalimantan Island has many species of stingless bees that are widespread through the province. However, their morphology, morphometry, and nest structure characteristics have not been documented fully. This paper described morphological characters, morphometric measurements, entrance and brood cell characterization study of stingless bee from meliponiculture in South Kalimantan, Indonesia. We identified 10 stingless bee species based on morphological features: Tetragonula laeviceps, T. fuscobalteata, T. drescheri, T. melanocephala, T. biroi, Tetragona apicalis, Heterotrigona itama, Lophotrigona canifrons, Geniotrigona thoracica, and Lepidotrigona terminata. In this study, we presented the PCA analysis to figure out the grouping characters in order to determine its diagnostic characters. Furthermore, we observed the shape, diameter, length, ornamentation, and color of the nest entrance and the arrangement, cells, and color of brood cells. We provide the first report of high variations in the type of entrance opening and different brood cells arrangements for stingless bee’s species, which occurs abundantly in South Kalimantan. |
