Horários de atividade forrageadora e material coletado por Polistes ferreri Saussure, 1853 (Hymenoptera, Vespidae), nas diferentes fases de seu ciclo biológico

Rodrigo Andrade, FlávioPrezoto, Fabio

Field work was carried out on the campus of Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora-MG, between August 23, 1999 and June 06, 2000. It was investigated the foraging activity of seven colonies (three on pre-emergence, three on postemergence and one on decline), from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., totalizing 70 hours registered. The foraging activity has taken place all day long in all developing stages, being more intense between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., the hottest period of the day. Allobservations had a positive correlation between the number of departures to forage and the temperature and a negative correlation between the departures and the relative humidity of the air. The efficiency index to the (prey forraging behavior) forage of prey was 13,04% to the pre-emergence stage, 22,92% to the post-emergence and 6,67% to the decline, showing a bigger foraging activity to the postemergence colonies. In all observations the mostcollected material was the nectar (44,40% to100%).