author(s)
Hemanth Kumar R, Srinivasa Reddy KM, Shishira D and Eshwarappa G

abstract
Stingless bees are the small sized bees which fall under the tribe Meliponini. The utilization of stingless bees in pollination is recently gaining lot of scope and importance, since it pollinates wide range of flora and easy to handle. Though reports of stingless bees visiting flowers of many crops are available in India, studies on evaluation of their pollinating efficiency are scarce. The present study was carried out to check the efficiency of stingless bees under closed condition enclosed with sunflower plants as a food source. The results reveal that both quantitative and qualitative parameters of sunflower enclosed with stingless bees were on par with the control.