Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sungai Buloh Campus, 47000 Sungai Buloh, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 2 Plant Pest Diagnostics Branch, California Department of Food & Agriculture, 3294 Meadowview Road, Sacramento, CA 95832-1448, USA
  • 3 Tropical Infectious Diseases Research and Education Centre (TIDREC), University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia
  • 4 Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
  • 5 EVO Conversion Systems, LLC, 5552 Raymond Stotzer Pkwy, Suite 100, College Station, TX 77485, USA
Insects, 2020 Oct 27;11(11).
PMID: 33121084 DOI: 10.3390/insects11110737

Abstract

Meliponiculture, the keeping of domesticated stingless bees such as Geniotrigona thoracica (Smith, 1857) (Hymenoptera: Apidae), is an increasingly popular agricultural industry in Malaysia. This study reports the soldier fly (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) species of the genus Hermetia colonizing stingless bee colonies in Malaysia. The larvae were reared in the laboratory to the adult stage and identified through molecular and morphological approaches. Hermetia illucens (Linnaeus, 1758) and Hermetia fenestrata de Meijere, 1904 (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) were identified from the sample provided. Earlier records of stratiomyids in stingless bee nests were misidentified as H. illucens. This paper represents the first identified record of H. fenestrata colonizing a "spoiled" stingless bee colony. In addition, adult and larval morphological differences between both species and the roles of both species in bee nest decomposition are discussed.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.