Apanteles flavipes is a gregarious endoparasitoid of Porthesia scintillans. A new method for the estimation of energy available to the parasitoid is presented and used to prepare an individual energy budget for A. flavipes. A. flavipes consumes 13.9 J of the host tissue and assimilates 13.4 J. Production amounted to 10.1 J. Efficiencies of assimilation and production are 96.2 and 753 % respectively. Metamorphic metabolic rate was 0.555 kJ/g/day.

The suitability of Chilo partellus (Swinh.) larvae reared on gram (Cicer arietinum) flour diet, for rearing of the parasite, Apanteles flavipes (Cam.), was determined. The successful parasitism on diet fed or control larvae (reared on maize stems) was almost equal. There was also no significant difference in the mean egg-larval period of the parasite developed on both kinds of the hosts. However, on diet reared larvae, significantly more parasite grubs (20.3/host) failed to pupate as compared with control larvae (3.5/host). Consequently, the parasite cocoon production/host on them declined significantly but not drastically as they supported more number of parasite grubs/host as compared to control larvae.

Reasons of the failure of parasite grubs to pupate in diet are not certain but considering all the biological attributes of the parasite developed on diet reared larvae, the diet is recommended for its mass multiplication.