Diversity, Distribution and Relative Abundance of Insect Pollinators on Apple Crop in Shimla Hills of Western Himalaya India

Diversity, distribution and relative abundance of various insect visitors of apple crop was investigated and carried out by collecting flower visitors in different orchards located at Padola (2200 m), Kalzar (2514 m) and Jarol (2648m) in Shimla hills of Western Himalaya. Insect diversity studies showed that apple flowers were visited by 41 species of insects belonging to 5 orders and 16 families of class Insecta. Of these, 13 species belonged to Hymenoptera, 17 to Diptera, 8 to Lepidoptera, 2 to Coleoptera and 1 to order Thysanoptera. Analyses of data on relative abundance of different insect visitors revealed that Indian hivebee, A. cerana was the most abundant insect visitor to apple flowers in all the three experimental orchards i. e. Padola (29.23 %), Kalzar (29.43 %) and Jarol (28.82 %). European honey bee, A. mellifera (18.59 %, 17.23 % and 16.74 %) and Bombus tunicatus (2.02 %, 2.04 % and 1.98 %) were other important hymenopterans at Padola, Kalzar and Jarol orchards. Besides, hymenopterans, dipterans also constituted an important group of insect pollinators.