To evaluate the impact of the honeybee Apis mellifera adansonii Latreille on fruit and seed yields of Callistemon rigidus R. Br. 1819, its foraging and pollinating activities were studied in Ngaoundéré for two seasons (June–August 2009 and July–September 2010). Each year, observations were made on 120 inflorescences per treatment. The treatments included unlimited flower access by all visitors, bagged flowers to deny all visits and limited visits by A. m. adansonii only. In addition, all flower visitors were recorded. The worker bee's seasonal rhythm of activity, its foraging behaviour on flowers, its pollination efficiency, the fruiting rate, the number of seeds per fruit and the percentage of normal seeds were recorded. Individuals from five and ten insect species that visited C. rigidus flowers were recorded in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Apis mellifera adansonii was the most frequent, followed by Myrmicaria opaciventris Emery. Apis mellifera adansonii intensely and preferably foraged for nectar. The fruiting rate, the number of seeds per fruit and the percentage of normal seeds of unprotected inflorescences were significantly higher than those of inflorescences protected from insects. Apis mellifera adansonii foraging resulted in a significant increase in the fruiting rate by 92.04% in 2009 and 64% in 2010, as well as the number of seeds per fruit by 38.67% in 2009 and 59.16% in 2010, and the percentage of normal seeds by 84.67% in 2009 and 82.30% in 2010. Cultivation of C. rigidus plants could be recommended to increase seeds, fruits and honey production.

To determine species composition of fruit flies on six cultivated varieties of citrus (Late Valencia orange, Pineapple orange, Ovaleto, Mediterranean sweet lemon, Satsuma tangerine and Ortanique orange), a study was conducted at the Agricultural Research Centre, Kade, Ghana. Improvised Lynfield baited traps (methyl eugenol (ME) and citrus juice (CJ)) and McPhail baited traps (trimedlure (TML)) were used. Ripe infested fruits from the selected varieties were also collected and incubated. Tephritid fruit fly species from trapping were identified as Bactrocerainvadens Drew, Tsuruta & White, Bactroceracucurbitae (Coquillet), Ceratitisditissima Munro, C. anonae Graham, C. capitata (Wiedemann), C. bremii Guerin-Meneville, Dacusbivittatus (Bigot), D. punctatifrons Karsch and Trirhithrum Bezzi. A total of 35,247 fruit flies were collected from the traps, with densities of 10.38, 1.00 and 0.27 flies/trap/day for ME, CJ and TML traps, respectively. All incubated fruit varieties showed co-habitation of three different species (C. ditissima, C. anonae and B. invadens) in each of them. In addition, one Dacus vertebratus was obtained from dropped Late Valencia fruits. Moreover, three individual Fopius caudatus (Szèpligeti) parasitoids were recorded from the infested incubated fruits. Ranking of the different fruit fly species from infested incubated host fruits was as follows: C. ditissima (476) >C. anonae (74) > B. invadens (71) and D. vertebratus (1). Competitive ability among the invasive flies in their process to infest the six citrus varieties was observed. These findings could serve as a useful starting point for the development of a reliable catalogue of host diversity, fruit fly species diversity and associated natural enemy records in Ghana.

A participatory project was conducted with small-scale coffee growers from Quindío Department, Colombia. In 34 coffee lots in three municipalities, growers implemented an integrated management programme against the coffee berry borer (CBB) Hypothenemus hampei Ferrari, based on improved cultural harvesting and sanitation practices (to remove breeding habitats) and releases of exotic parasitoids. Growers released over 10 million Cephalonomia stephanoderis and 5 million Prorops nasuta (both Hymenoptera: Bethylidae) over 2 years. Populations of the CBB declined from a range of 7–14% infested berries (Quimbaya), 10–13% (Montenegro) and 15–48% (Buenavista) prior to the integrated pest management programme, to an average of 2.1 ± 0.2% infested berries in Químbaya, 3.5 ± 0.2% in Montenegro and 2.8 ± 2.1% in Buenavista, over the following 25 months. Damage to parchment coffee similarly declined during this period. Six months after the final release of parasitoids had been made, we found both parasitoid species established in all three municipalities. However, P. nasuta were recovered more frequently (in 71.4% of lots where they were previously released) compared with C. stephanoderis (recovered in 30.8% of release lots). Average parasitism rates remained low, i.e. 3.7% for P. nasuta and 2.9% for C. stephanoderis. This low rate was probably due to the frequent manual removal of mature berries containing developing parasitoid larvae. In addition, the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana was observed on average on 9.5% adult CBB in Montenegro, compared with mean infection rates of 4.3 and 4.4% in Quimbaya and Buenavista, respectively. Cultural harvesting and sanitation is an important component of CBB control, although it may limit the impact of the pest's parasitoids.

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) has become an important health problem in Sri Lanka. Dickwella Divisional Secretariat Division (DSD) located in southern Sri Lanka has been identified as a highly endemic focus for CL. However, to date, the potential sandfly vectors of the Leishmania parasite causing CL have not been elucidated in this focus. This study aimed to determine the species composition and population dynamics of sandflies prevalent at three sampling stations representing different ecological conditions in two high-risk areas in Dickwella DSD, over a period of 27 consecutive weeks. Resting sandflies (i.e. indoor collection) were collected from the lavatories of human households using Castro aspirators at weekly intervals. In addition, cattle-baited traps were deployed at bi-weekly intervals to capture foraging sandflies (outdoor collection). Sergentomyia zeylanica Annandale was found to be the only sandfly species and hence was considered as the potential vector of the Leishmania parasite that causes CL. As a whole, 84 and 96% of the sampling occasions were positive for resting and foraging sandflies, respectively. Seventy-six per cent of the lavatories sampled contained sandflies regardless of the sampling station. Altogether, 34,481 sandflies were captured from lavatories, whereas 691 were collected in cattle-baited traps. The ecological habitat, which comprised dense vegetation and a stagnant water body, seemed to be highly productive for this sandfly species. However, dryness and heavy rains negatively affected its population density. The sex ratio of the sandflies was male-biased at 1:2 (females:males). The findings of this study suggested that the management strategies of S. zeylanica could be targeted on lavatories especially after moderate rains.

The Asian citrus psyllid Diaphorina citri Kuwayama is a destructive insect pest in citriculture, because it is an efficient vector of the proteobacteria ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’ (Las), ‘Ca. L. africanus’ (Laf) and ‘Ca. L. americanus’ (Lam). These bacteria cause the ‘huanglongbing’ disease or ‘greening’ or ‘yellow dragon’ disease. The disease kills the plant and reduces fruit production. This insect pest is susceptible to entomopathogenic fungi, and we report the use of different strains of Metarhizium anisopliae, Cordyceps bassiana and Isaria fumosorosea against the nymphs and adults of D. citri under field conditions. The fungi were applied four times using a concentration of 2 × 1013 conidia/ha with a time interval of 15 days between applications. The percentage of control of Cb 108, Ma 65, Ma 14 and Ifr 4 was 60, 50, 40 and 35% in nymphs, and 50, 50, 42 and 22% in adults, respectively. Metarhizium anisopliae, C. bassiana and I. fumosorosea applied on Persian lime groves are more effective in reducing higher density of nymphs than adults of D. citri.

The interactions between the cowpea aphid Aphis craccivora Koch, its parasitoid Lysiphlebus testaceipes Cresson and hyperparasitoid Syrphophagus africanus Gahan were assessed in the laboratory. Host age preference for hyperparasitism was evaluated using parasitized aphids of different ages (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 days old and mixed ages). We studied the influence of the hyperparasitoid on the parasitism efficiency of L. testaceipes, the effect of host age on some biological parameters of S. africanus, and its hyperparasitism based on aggregated or isolated mummies. The presence of S. africanus significantly affected aphid parasitism by L. testaceipes (21.2 ± 3.6 vs 36.6 ± 4.5%). Except for 1-day-old hosts, S. africanus successfully parasitized hosts of all tested ages, with preference for newly formed mummies (39.16 ± 3.31% parasitism in 5-day-old hosts). The development time of immature stages of the S. africanus progeny was significantly affected by host age. The sex ratio of the hyperparasitoid progeny was largely female biased and did not vary with host age. Syrphophagus africanus females from live parasitized aphids produced more offspring (36.55 ± 6.28 vs 25.00 ± 7.16) and lived longer (21.09 ± 1.57 vs 10.88 ± 2.31 days) than those from mummy hosts. Hyperparasitism rates were higher on aggregated mummies than on dispersed ones (36.00 ± 2.86 vs 20.66 ± 4.00%).

The life history of Oplostomus haroldi (Witte), a recently reported pest of honeybee colonies in East Africa, was studied for the first time under laboratory conditions. Adult O. haroldi collected from beehives in the coastal part of Kenya were reared on a mixture of moist sterilized soil and cow dung. At 25 ± 2 °C, 50 ± 5% relative humidity and a 10 h light-14 h dark photoperiod, the laid eggs took 11.9 ± 1.3 days to hatch into a curved pear-shaped scarabaeiform larva with a well-developed head and thoracic legs. The first, second and third larval instars lasted 14.6 ± 2.6, 17.5 ± 2.4 and 34.6 ± 2.4 days, respectively. The pupal stage, which was marked by formation of a mud cocoon, lasted 31.1 ± 6.7 days with the adults surviving for 2–6 months under laboratory conditions, suggesting that the beetle is multivoltine. A detailed taxonomic description of the external morphology of the third instar larva is provided.

The influence of solitary versus group rearing on the development and survival of the three-striped ladybird beetle Brumoides suturalis (Fabricius) was studied using two aphid species, Acyrthosiphon pisum (Harris) and Aphis gossypii Glover, as diet. Rearing pattern (solitary or group) had no significant influence on the success of rearing, but prey species did. While immature stages developed faster on A. pisum, the survival of early instars was higher on A. gossypii. Diet had no effect on pupal survival.