الفهرس 
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Abstract
The ecological and biological studies of Megachile minutissima, as well as the effect of temperature and cold storage periods on prepupal diapause and post-diapause development were
studied. The ecological studies indicated that the nesting efficiency of M minutissima was the highest
rate in the first type of artificial nest shelters model No. I. EI-Marzoukia region was the best location
for the nesting of M minutissima, followed by EI-Zaheria, Tel EI-Hattab Bridge and EI-Khofeig
region. The highest percentage of completed straws was observed at the left side and decreased
gradually to the center then increased toward the right side of nest shelter. Meanwhile, the greatest
number of live prepuae was founded in EI-Zaheria region, while the highest number of transformed
pupae and adults was recorded in EI-Marzoukia region. The upper cells from (6th till 10th cells) had
highest percentage of live prepupae. The highest number of live prepupae was recorded in the fifth
category of straws contained 7 cells, which decreased gradually with decreasing the number of cells
inside the examined straws. The prepupae could enter in diapause for long time reached to 8.9 months
for females and 9.8 months for males before their transformation into pupae. Regarding the effect of
temperature and cold storage periods, data indicated that the minimum time needed in hot incubator
at 30°C to transform prepupae into pupae, adult males and females was 7, 17 and 19 days,
respectively, while the maximum time was 26 days for all stages. The percentage of emerged adults
was 60% at 146 days storage, and 40% at 188 days storage, and decreased thereafter to 28% and 4%
at 193 and 300 days storage, respectively.