This book covers pot-pollen—the other product, besides honey, stored in cerumen pots by Meliponini. Critical assessment is given of stingless bee and pot-pollen biodiversity in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Topics addressed include historical biogeography, cultural knowledge, bee foraging behavior, pollination, ecological interactions, health applications, microbiology, the natural history of bee nests, and chemical, bioactive and individual plant components in stored pollen. Pot-pollen maintains the livelihoods of stingless bees and provides many interesting biological products that are just now beginning to be understood. The Meliponini have developed particular nesting biologies, uses of building materials, and an architecture for pollen storage. Environmental windows provide optimal temperature and availability of pollen sources for success in plant pollination and pollen storage. Palynological composition and pollen taxonomy are used to assess stingless honey bee pollination services. Pollen processing with microorganisms in the nest modifies chemical composition and bioactivity, and confers nutraceutical benefits to the honey and pollen widely relished by native people. Humans have always used stingless bees. Yet, sustainable meliponiculture (stingless bee-keeping) projects have so far lacked a treatise on pot-pollen, which experts provide in this transdisciplinary, groundbreaking volume.

Stingless bees (Meliponini) are the largest and most diverse group of social bees, yet their largely tropical distribution means that they are less studied than their relatives, the bumble bees and honey bees. Stingless bees produce honey and collect pollen from tens of thousands of tropical plant species and, in the process, provide critical pollination services in the tropics. Like many other insects, they are struggling with new human-made challenges like habitat destruction, climate change and new diseases. This book provides an overview of stingless bee biology, with chapters on the evolutionary history, nesting biology, colony organisation and division of labour of stingless bees. In addition, it explores their defence strategies, foraging ecology, and varied communication methods. Accordingly, the book offers an accessible introduction and reference guide for students, researchers and laypeople interested in the biology of bees.

The stingless bees are one of the most diverse, attractive, fascinating, conspicuous and useful of all the insect groups of the tropical world. This is a formidable and contentious claim but I believe it can be backed up. They are fifty times more species rich than the honey bees, the other tribe of highly eusocial bees. They are ubiquitous in the tropics and thrive in tropical cities. In rural areas, they nest in a diversity of sites and are found on the flowers of a broad diversity of crop plants. Their role in natural systems is barely studied but they almost certainly deserve that hallowed title of keystone species. They are popular with the general public and are greatly appreciated in zoos and gardens. The chapters of this book provide abundant further evidence of the ecological and economic importance of stingless bees.

Pollen is made up of many chemical constituents such as proteins, sugars, lipids, minerals and phytochemicals. These components make pollen products an excellent source of nutrients and antioxidants for consumers. However, mycotoxigenic fungi are also common in pollen, creating contamination from generated mycotoxins. With adequate monitoring, sampling, processing and storage of pollen the development of mycotoxins can be significantly prevented. Since pollen grain has strong membranes which can limit the bioavailability of some nutrients and phytochemicals, novel methods and pretreatments are required with special emphasis on microbiological pretreatment methodologies. Pollen Chemistry & Biotechnology summarizes current knowledge of the chemical composition of pollen, its importance as a functional food ingredient and its health promoting properties. As Introduction part a short elaborate about botanical characteristics and data, including morphology and anatomy of pollen and bee preferences, is given. Important factors such as the botanical and geographical origin, best practices for preservation of nutritional composition, bioactivity and safety of pollen are covered in full. The nutritional profile of pollen based on data for minerals, lipids and nutrients is presented. A detailed phytochemical profile of pollen based on data for phenolics, flavonoids, carotenoids, vitamins, bioactive compounds is also covered. Areas for the improvement of the bioavailability of different nutrients and bioactive compounds of pollen via applied pretreatments are presented, as are best practices for adequate pollen collection, procession and storage in order to obtain safe products. At the end, an overview about pollen bioactivity as reason to use it as source of pharmaceuticals is made.

Despite being the biggest group of organisms inhabiting Earth in both diversity and sheer numbers, insects are barely commercialized. Most of the standard textbooks of applied entomology talk about insect pest management, and when it comes to commercial aspects of insects, only apiculture, sericulture, and lac culture are talked about. This book will help bring other commercial uses of insects and their economic potential to the fore. This will generate interest in further research on the commercial potential of insects, thereby harnessing a much-found resource. The book has the following salient features: 1. Encompasses all major aspects of beneficial and commercial insects. 2. Deals with edible insects and mass culture of natural enemies and beneficial insects. 3. Emphasis on the mass cultivation of beneficial insects for obtaining yields. 4. Discusses stingless bees and their products. 5. Helps to solve the problem of food scarcity and improve food security.

Since the second half of the 20th Century, our agricultural bee pollinators have faced mounting threats from ecological disturbance and pan-global movement of pathogens and parasites. At the same time, the area of pollinator-dependent crops is increasing globally with no end in sight. Never before has so much been asked of our finite pool of bee pollinators. This book not only explores the evolutionary and ecologic bases of these dynamics, it translates this knowledge into practical research-based guidance for using bees to pollinate crops. It emphasizes conserving wild bee populations as well as culturing honey bees, bumble bees, and managed solitary bees. To cover such a range of biology, theory, and practice from the perspectives of both the pollinator and the crop, the book is divided into two volumes. Volume 1 focuses on bees, their biology, coevolution with plants, foraging ecology and management, and gives practical ways to increase bee abundance and pollinating performance on the farm. Volume 2 (also available from CABI) focuses on crops, with chapters addressing crop-specific requirements and bee pollination management recommendations. Both volumes will be essential reading for farmers, horticulturists and gardeners, researchers and professionals working in insect ecology and conservation, and students of entomology and crop protection.

This is a comprehensive, authentic, and standard book on unique fundamentals applied to advances in insect pollination technology in the sustainable agriculture industry. This book aims to accomplish the needs of undergraduate and postgraduate students in insect pollination technology. Entomologists, agronomists, horticulturists, environmental scientists, plant breeders, researchers, professionals, extension workers, seed producers, and industrial entrepreneurs will benefit from this book. The book is divided into fourteen chapters which deal with a broad and comprehensive range of topics on advance in insect pollination technology in sustainable agriculture, global agro-industry in the absence of insect pollinators – historical outlook, pollination concepts and crop production.

This book gathers the proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Computational Science and Technology 2020 (ICCST 2020), held in Pattaya, Thailand, on 29–30 August 2020. The respective contributions offer practitioners and researchers a range of new computational techniques and solutions, identify emerging issues, and outline future research directions, while also showing them how to apply the latest large-scale, high-performance computational methods.