Diploid Male Production of Two AmazonianMeliponaBees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

The diploid male has already been recorded forMeliponaIllger, and herein, inMelipona seminigra merrillaeCockerell andMelipona interrupta manaosensisSchwarz. This paper was carried out at the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Manaus, AM, Brazil. We produced and monitored 31 new colonies ofM. s. merrillaeand 32 new colonies ofM. i. manaosensis. We sampled 2,995 pupae ofM. s. merrillaeand 2,020 ofM. i. manaosensis. In colonies with a 1 : 1 sex ratio, male diploidy was confirmed by cytogenetic analysis and workers’ behavior. We estimated 16 sex-determining alleles inM. s. merrillaeand 22 inM. i. manaosensis. In colonies ofM. i. manaosensisin a 1 : 1 sex ratio, workers killed the males and the queen that produced them soon after they emerged, as predicted. This behavior was not registered forM. s. merrillae, and sex ratios did not stay 1 : 1, indicating polyandry for this species.