Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 53. (Budapest 1961)

Móczár, L.: The distribution of wild bees in the lucerne fields of Hungary (Hymenoptera, Apoidea)

ANNALES HISTORICO-NATURALES MUSEI NATIONALIS HUNGARICI Tomus 53. PARS ZOOLOGICA 1961. The Distribution of Wild Bees in the Lucerne Fields of Hungary (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) By L. MÓCZÁR, Budapest There is, in recent years, an increasing amount of attention turned to the role of wdd bees visiting cultivated lucerne, due to its national economic importance. Of the wild bees, to be found in the lucerne fields of the several regions, L i n s 1 e y (1946) gave the first survey. Popov (1951) reviewed the most important pollinators of lucerne in Central Asia. B o h a r t (1957) summarizes the data relating to the most important species from mainly North America, Argentine, and Australia. In Europe, the chief contributors to our knowledge on the wild bees of the lucerne fields are Le sin s (1950), Petersen (1954), Ufer (1932), Stapel (1943), and Juga & Scobiola (1959). In Hungary, after some prehminary methodological experiments (Móczár 1954), there began an extensive survey work, on the request, and with the support, of Z. Bojtos, of the Agricultural Research Institute in Martonvásár of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, in several parts of the country, on the summers of 1954, 1955, 1956. The surveys were made by the present author and his collaborators (M óczár 1956, 1959, Móczár&Böjtös 1957), the results of which, concerning the areal distribution and dominancy relations of the wild bees, are being summarized in the present paper. For the sake of establishing the dominancy relations of Apoidea, we have captured by netting the observed wdd bees active on the lucerne flowers. This work was done for 30 minutes at a time, on the fore- and afternoons of generally ten days per year and in every survey area, in the blossoming period of the seed lucerne. Bieberdorf 's method (1949), collecting Apoidea per sweep with a sweeping net, cannot be the right one, since, by experience, this method will scare away the wary wld bees within an area of some meters diameter. On the other hand, the singhng method

—in the course of which, by going slowly around on the external margin of the field, we stir but the one or two lucerne plants from which the specimen is netted

—does not disturb the activity of the wild bees in the least. I shall not repeat here weather conditions and other data as fouud and gathered during the surveys, since I have discussed them elsewhere (M óczár 1959). Also, I shall omit the considerable number of partial data of the several surveys, reviewing instead first the combined data of the lucerne fields investigated during the three years of work, then the united three years data of the research areas in question. The survey results of 1954 In 1954, we collected in the following areas, periods, and with collaborators : I. Hanság (Győr), between 7 July—

3 August, collector M. A r a d i. — II. Com. Fejér (Martonvásár), 7 days between 21 June

—5 July, collector B. Dolinka. — III. Com. Somogy (Zamárdi Felső), 11 days between 1 July

—10 August, collector L. Móczár. — IV. Com. Baranya (Ocsárd), 10 days between 2—28 July, collector A. Gebhardt.

—V. Kiskunság (Kecskemét), 10 days between 12 July—

9 August, collector L. Móczár. — VI. Com. Csongrád (Szegtd), 11 days between 29—27 July, collector Gy. Csongor. — VIL Nagykunság (Karcag), 10 and 11 August, collector B. Dolinka.

— VIII. Hajdúság (Debrecen), 12 days between 26 July

—22 August, collector L. Szücs.