Vol. 12, Issue 2 (2023)

Honeybees are the most economically valuable social insect. The act of gathering pollen and nectar from bee flora is known as foraging behavior for the production of honey. Therefore, foraging is an important activity for the gathering of honey and pollen for feeding the young brood as bee bread. The study was conducted at two different weather conditions in Odisha at AICRP on honeybees and pollinators, OUAT, Bhubaneswar (taken as a coastal entity), and KVK, Semiliguda (taken as an interior pocket) from December 2021 to February 2022 to record the impact of weather parameters on the foraging activity of Apis cerana indica F. in the winter season., The foragers were observed to be 20.5, 7.6, and 22.1 numbers per 5 min, and 31, 17.2, and 29.6 foragers/5 min were observed for nectar, pollen, and outgoing foragers, respectively, at Bhubaneswar and Semiliguda conditions. Correlation studies revealed that rainfall only had a significant impact on foraging activity and negative correlation of -0.587*, -0.539*, and -0.580* for nectar, pollen, and outgoing foraging activity respectively at Bhubaneswar while it was not significant effect at Semiliguda. A Positive significant correlation was observed for maximum and minimum temperature with a correlation of more than 0.5 while minimum temperature negatively affected the foraging activity, which was not significant at Bhubaneswar conditions. The regression study showed that Minimum temperature and rainfall were the two parameters contributing 83.8%, 90.7%, and 80.9% for outgoing, nectar, and pollen foragers, respectively, at OUAT, Bhubaneswar. whereas due to minimum temperature, relative humidity (afternoon), and rainfall, the foraging activity was affected by as much as 97.5% and 95.1% for nectar and pollen foragers at Semiliguda, while only minimum temperature and relative humidity (afternoon), affected the foraging activity for outgoing foragers.