APOIDEA OF FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA AND SURROUNDING AREAS. I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION AND THE COLLETIDAE.
The present paper is the general introduction to a series of papers on wild bees (Hymenoptera Apoidea) of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region (North-eastern Italy) and surrounding areas, and the presentation of the species belonging to the Colletidae family. In subsequent papers data on the remaining bee families will be provided. In the first part of this note, after a brief summary of the work carried out in the past in Italy and in the studied areas, the aims and methods used in this series of reports are described. In addition to the presentation of the data concerning hundreds of original specimens collected in the period 1980-2004, great importance is given to bibliographical research, in particular the papers by Eduard Gräffe (1833-1916), and the study of the specimens cited by the same person and conserved in the museum collections. In the second part, data are presented on the occurrence and distribution of different bee species belonging to the family of Colletidae in the various geographic areas of the region, and for many of them on the flowering plants visited. Forty species of Colletidae were found; 29 belonging to the genus Hylaeus FABRICIUS and 11 to the genus Colletes LATREILLE. H. kahri FÖRSTER, H. taeniolatus FÖRSTER, C. hederae SCHMIDT & WESTRICH, C. hylaeiformis EVERSMANN, C. maidli NOSKIEWICZ and C. nigricans GISTEL should be inserted at the species level into the Checklist of
Italian species. The species H. trinotatus PÉREZ and C. hylaeiformis EVERSMANN are recorded for the first time to Northern Italy. It was not possible to confirm the occurrence of the other seven species mentioned in the literature.
