Seasonal Availability of Bee Flora at Coronation Garden, Kirtipur, Nepal

Abstract

The investigation on the bee flora and their identification and classification wasundertaken during 2015-2016 at the Coronation Garden,Tribhuvan University,Kirtipur. Flowering plant species were observed during field survey to conveywhether the flowering speciesvisitedby bees or not.Whether the visited floweringspecies confirmed as bee flora or not distinguished after visual observation. Theidentified bee flora was further grouped into major, medium and minor bee florasonthe basis of nectar and pollen they collected. The flowering period of the bee floradocumented to prepare the floral calendar. Pollen picture of eachbee flora hasbeenprepared in order to prepare pollen library. A total of 197 plant species identified asimportant bee floraby this study. Among them 35 species were horticultural species,77 were ornamental flowers, 27 were vegetables, cereals, pulses and others, 8 werenaturalized and 50 were wild plant species. Among them45 species were consideredasthe majorbee flora, 41species wereas themedium and 62 asthe minorbee florasfor both pollen and nectar they collected. Some of the common and important beeforage plants wereTrifoliumrepens,Oxalis corniculata, Cupheamicrantha,Lagerstroemia indica, Callistemoncitrinus, Grevillea robusta, Citrus spp., Salviasplendis, etc.This study was carried out to indicate the present condition of food crisisand malnutrition. Which is due to declining of pollinators, floral species, mis-use ofland farming system, pesticides use, being neglected by everyone etc. So, it isimportant to know everyone, if we are not aware of this type of problems it would begreat loss to human society. To conduct my research, I have use following dataanalysis. Diversity analysis, species diversity, Shannon-Weiner’s index, Simpsonindex, Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), Correlation coefficient. Being abandon and neglected area this area gives the clear vision there is abundanceof bee flora species. Bee flora was categorized into ornamental, horticultural,vegetable and crop species, naturalized and wild forms. Among three seasons inSummer & Spring there were 118 & 116 bee flora. There were 139 species were nearones, 28 as far and 30 as very far species. Out of 197 bee floras 56 species were redcolor, 15 as blue color, 46 as yellow and 79 as white. This area can be home of manypollinators and hotspot of bee floral species.