Michio Sugahara, none, moriguchi, 1-29-5, osaka, 570-0008, Japan
Cymbidium floribundum distributes in south China and Taiwan. It has been reported that swarming Apis cerana japonica aggregates for long time on flower of C. floribundum. The same phenomenon can be observed with the absconding bees (Fukuda, 1988; Sasaki, 1992). They swarm onto bunches of the flowers and cover the entire surface.
This time I examined the aggregation activity of several other Cymbidium species, and then found that two other species; C. devonianum which distributes in Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and North Thailand and C. suavissimum which distributes in North Burma (David, D. P. and Phillip, C. 1988). Assay of the activity was performed using a flower of one bowl for swarming A. cerana and also for the 200 – 300 honeybees taken up from their nest (Sugahara, M., 2001) in the case of C. devonianum. Both animals aggregated on the flowers and stayed there for more than 1 h. Furthermore the swarming honeybees aggregated for one day on the natural flowers in a pot.
In the case of C. suavissimum, only the honeybees taken up from their nest were used because blooming season and swarming season of the honeybees were different. The honeybees aggregated on the flowers strongly.
Those results suggest that both species are closed to C. floribundum because many cymbidium species so far tested did not show this activity.
Fukuda M.1988.Honeybee Science 9:127-130
Sasaki M.1992. Honeybee Science 13:167-172
David D. P. and Phillip, C. 1988.The Genus Cymbidium .Timber Press
Sugahara M. 2001. Honeybee Science 22:79-82
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