- A P du Toit & D Swart
- Apicultural Unit, Plant Protection Research Institute, Private Bag X134, Pretoria 0001
- 1994
Honeybee foraging activity in a litchi orchard was monitored by investigating returning foragers for nectar, water, pollen and bee-glue. At commencement of flowering 22 beehives were introduced into a 10 ha orchard. Both nectar and pollen were collected throughout the day from litchi florets, as well as during the entire flowering period. Water was collected mainly in the afternoon, on some days only. No bee-glue was collected.
In a second experiment in which fruit-set was studied, 400 panicles were marked on 20 trees and left open. A second set of 400 panicles was bagged with 1 mm’ gauze to exclude insects. A mean set of six fruits (range 0-35) per open-pollinated panicle was recorded, compared to two fruits per bagged panicle. The mean weight per fruit was 18 g per fruit for open panicles.