A museum at National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bengaluru has started to put together a collection of bees from across India, particularly biodiversity hotspots such as Western Ghats and North-east India.
According to NCBS, whose scientists are part of a global collaboration to chart a road-map to take Asian bee research forward, “The lack of knowledge about where and how bee species live, and even more foundationally, an inability to identify different species is the biggest impediment to the conservation of Asian bees. This is the case in India too, where very little is known about the species’ diversity, population trends and the behavioural traits of native bee species.”
