2024, Vol. 9, Special Issue 1

The present investigation was conducted to find out the influence of bee attractants on foraging activity of honey bee in sunflower. The research work was carried out on field of Division of Entomology RCSM College of Agriculture, Kolhapur during summer season 2023. The results obtained are summarized below. The results revealed that the highest number of seeds/capitulum (1164.07) was recorded in the treatment of jaggery solution 10%. Further, the lowest per cent of chaffiness (4.33%) was also found in treatment with jaggery solution 10%. Significantly, higher test weight (45.67 g) was recorded in jaggery solution 10%. The crop sprayed with jaggery solution 10 per cent recorded highest seed yield per plant (47.60 g) and the highest seed yield per hectare (26.50 q/ha). Subsequently, open pollination with water spray (19.97 q/ha) and pollination without insects (12.23 q/ha) was recorded lowest yield. It was followed by lemongrass oil 1% (25.87 q/ha), lemongrass oil 0.5% (24.97 q/ha), sugar solution 5% (24.43 q/ha) and jaggery solution 5% (23.83 q/ha).