The body size of the oil-collecting bee Tetrapedia diversipes (Apidae)

The body size of bees can affect their fitness in many ways. There is an indirect relationship between the size of the mother and the size of her progeny. This is so because large mothers use larger nests and brood cells and have higher foraging capacity than small mothers, and consequently large mothers supply a larger amount of food to their larvae, which grow larger. We analyzed the relationship between body size of individual oil-collecting bees of the species Tetrapedia diversipes and the size of their brood cells from Boraceia and Ilhabela, southeastern Brazil. In addition, we manipulated 26 brood cells of a population at the campus of Universidade de Sao Paulo by removing food from 13 brood cells. In this case, we checked the relationship between the body size of these bees and the amount of food consumed. We measured 241 individuals: 135 males and 106 females. No significant size difference was found between males and females. Only a weak relationship between body size and brood cell volume was detected, possibly due to the low variation in both female size and brood cell size. In the food manipulation experiment, the unmanipulated individuals were larger than individuals for whom part of the provisions were removed but no correlation was found between amount of food removed and offspring size.