Eco. Env. & Cons. 28 (November Suppl. Issue) : 2022; pp. (S325-S330) Copyright@ EM International ISSN 0971–765X Diversity of bee foraging flora and floral calendar of Chandigarh region (U.T.), India during winter and summer season Sunaina Jaswal*, Dalip Kumar and Neelam K. Sharma *Post Graduate Government College for Girls, Sector- 42, Chandigarh 160 036, Punjab, India (Received 6 March, 2022; Accepted 27 May, 2022) ABSTRACT The study was conducted at Chandigarh during winter and summer seasons to identify existing bee flora and to determine honey flow and dearth period. Visual observations were done to know the presence of honey bees and their foraging activities on different plants. Plants were reported as bee foraging species when at least 50% honey bee frequency was observed on them. Results concluded that winter season has 21 plant taxa of 11 families and summer has 50 plant taxa of 28 families. The identified flora was further grouped into nectar, pollen and both nectar and pollen sources. Results also revealed that winter has 7 and summer has 16 bee forage plants which provide both pollen and nectar in good quantity to honey bees. Late summer and raining seasons were identified as critical dearth period. Based on the availability of flora and their utility status the bee floral calendar was developed for Chandigarh. The result indicated that some parts of Chandigarh has rich bee flora in these seasons. By multiplying those highly preferred bee forage plants equally in all parts of different sub- divisions of Chandigarh, commercial bee keeping could be increased in future for economic purposes. Key words: Bee flora, Floral calendar, Bee forage plants, Dearth period, A. mellifera, Beekeeping Introduction Beekeeping is agricultural based industry which is essential for pollination and production of various honey bee products. It needs limited expenses and less land to obtain maximum benefit. The demand of bee keeping has increased and its success de- pends upon various in- colony and out-colony fac- tors (Crane, 1990 and Singh, 2005). Honey bees ob- tain pollen or nectar or both pollen and nectar from foraging plants (Bhattacharya, 2004 and Waykar et al., 2014). The honey flow period and dearth period are not same in all types of geographical areas dur- ing different seasons. The blooming period of plants is also highly affected by light, temperature and various other climatic conditions (Free, 1970). Forag- ing behaviour and frequency of honey bees is also affected by various climatic factors and electromag- netic rays (Kumar et al., 2011 and Thielens, 2020). The detailed knowledge about bee forage plants of any area is very important for maintaining and en- hancing the beekeeping industry in that particular area (Kumar et al., 2013). Such information enables beekeepers to utilize them at the maximum level to harvest a good yield of honey bee products and ef- fective crop pollination. Preparation of a bee forage calendar of any area requires the complete observa- tions of the seasonal changes, frequency of honey bees on different plants, time spent by honey bees on flower and also number of flowers visited by honey in per unit time. Such knowledge about the bee flora helps the beekeepers in the effective man- DOI No.: http://doi.org/10.53550/EEC.2022.v28i07s.053