Honey Plant Diversity of the Stingless Bee, Plebeina armata (Magrett) (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in South-Central Burkina Faso
Abstract
Honey host plants of Plebeina armata are poorly known in Burkina Faso. The development of meliponiculture based on this species necessarily requires knowledge of its host plants. This study therefore aimed to identify the honey plants associated with P. armata in the southern Sudanese zone of Burkina Faso. To achieve this, woody plants found around P. armata nests were catalogued in three ecosystems (fields, fallows and forests). Research was conducted using botanical databases and scientific journals to identify which of the catalogued plant species are honey plants. Floristic diversity was assessed in terms of species richness, genus and family diversity. The results revealed 68 honey plant species distributed in 54 genera and 24 families inventoried around P. armata nests in the three ecosystems. These plants included 52 species in fallows, 48 in forests and 53 in fields. In fallow, 22 species of honey plants were recorded near P. armata nests, including 21 genera and 13 families. This indicates that honey plants consistently occurred around all nests in the fallow areas across all observations. In the forest ecosystem, 27 species, including 23 genera and 14 families, had a frequency of 100%. In fields, only 12 species across 12 genera and 8 families had a frequency of 100%. As in other studies, the Fabaceae family had the highest number of species across all three ecosystems, accounting for 27%, 29% and 30% of species in fallows, forests and fields, respectively. These results provide important information for the practice of meliponiculture with the species P. armata.