Temporal Memory in Foraging of the Stingless Bee Melipona subnitida (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponini)

Bees feed on nectar and pollen, however these resources are often available to floral visitors during restricted temporal windows. The presence of memory is an advantage, as foragers can save energy by scheduling their flight activity coincide with peaks secretion in the flowers or at times higher sugar concentration nectar. Thus, objectives this study were (i) investigate whether Melipona subnitida has memory, evaluate it becomes more accurate over days, (ii) determine behavior anticipating offered resource presents intra-individual consistency foragers. visitation bees was high before opening interval food resource, but rare after closing, suggesting that M. ability memorize time availability increasing accuracy visits relation they discovered resource. There individual food-anticipatory activity, consistently anticipated (inspectors) did not anticipate (reactivated forager) . By search for a allow group exploit effectively, first hours its opening, never avoid unnecessary risks predation expenditure.