Nesting behavior of giant honey bees ( Apis dorsata )

A study was carried out to investigate the nesting behaviour of giant honeybee Apis dorsata at Chitwan district, Nepal during June from 2002 to 2004. The bees preferred building their nest on tall and safe buildings, followed by trees and rarely on rocks. They gave highest preference to the strong-cemented water tank and then to residential buildings having flat slab made out of bricks, iron and cement for making their nests. In the absence of such buildings, the bees built the nests on the strong live big branches of simal ( Bombax ceiba ) trees. They never built the nests on old and weak buildings and dead trees that were not strong enough to support the load of the nest. The bees built the nests at an elevation of 2 to 50 m from ground level towards the sunny, open and undisturbed area. Highest preference was given to the same spot of previous year's nest to rebuild their nest. The bees never rebuilt their nests on the spot of previous nest if the colony was burnt on fire or site treated with chemical(s) or washed or painted with paints. Small swarms of the same place shared the space of the same buildings or trees for making their nests. Several colonies lived together, sometimes touching each other's nest and did not rob for honey and pollen. The size of the nest varied from 2 to 30 cm in breadth and 10 to 130 cm in length with a shape variation of round to elliptical. Honey and pollen were stored at one of the corner of the nest providing more area for brood production. The bees built the nest vertically with the honey and pollen store at the upper most corners when the nesting place was extended vertically to give the proper balance.